Analysis Of Solomon Northrup's 'Twelve Years A Slave'

In the autobiography “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northrup, the author is born a free man of Saratoga, New York in 1808. Solomon, a jack-of-all-trades, had many different jobs through the years as his wife worked as a cook to provide for their three children. In 1841, Northrup is approached by two men who present him a lucrative job opportunity as a violinist in a circus. Deeming the two men trustworthy, he accepts their offer. Sadly, this prosperous opportunity proved fictitious when Solomon is drugged and wakes up in a dark room with his hands and feet shackled. Soon after, Solomon is sold into slavery where his freedom was bought by multiple masters for the next twelve years. Unfortunately, Solomon’s last years remain a mystery. According

Unlike Stowe, Northrup does not dwell on feelings, but when he describes especially horrific events he employs sensory language so the reader can empathize with the characters. Since Northrup’s narrative is told through a first person perspective, he is able to give incite to the horrible realities of a slave’s life such as the lashings of other slaves and himself. Northrup appeals to the senses when he states, “She was terribly lacerated— I may say, without exaggeration, literally flayed. The lash was wet with blood, which flowed down her sides and dropped upon the ground…” (155). This quote gives the reader a gruesome visual which they may relate to because of the term “flayed”. This word is associated with cooking and preparing animal meat. In addition, Northup may have only used this word to describe the situation, but this term garners a dehumanizing quality because of its association with preparing animal meat. When reading the term “flayed”, one may think of the action of flaying a fish and the painful outcome of this action on Patsy’s back. This brings the reader uncomfortably close to the situation at hand. Another scene that shows Northrup’s sensory language is when he is whipped by Burch, a slave dealer. Northrup states, “I thought I must die beneath the lashes of the accused brute… I was all on fire… My suffering I

With each work, there are different perspectives and thoughts presented. For example, Northrup states, “I, who had been so lonely, and who had longed so ardently to see some one, I cared not who, now shuddered at the thought of a man’s approach. A human face was fearful to me, especially a white one” (20). This quote exemplifies the dehumanized slave’s view of a savage master and white people as a whole. Not only are slaves being degraded as a whole for their skin color, but whites can be degraded as to be seen as inhuman. Thus, I believe it is important to read both works to be