There are a plethora of historical narratives that are available to readers in the twenty-first century, but none are quite like Solomon Northup’s narrative, 12 Years a Slave. Solomon gives readers a glance as to what life as a slave was like in the 1840s. Solomon was a free man who lived his life in New York. Tragically, he was tricked, drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. Both the book and the movie, 12 Years a Slave, make you imagine and relive what Solomon experienced. His bondage and struggle portrayed can only make one cringe from all the inhuman things that Solomon saw and lived through. Although the movie and book provide experiences as these, it is the book that provides a deeper perspective and its untouched truth as to what …show more content…
A driver, described in 12 Years a Slave, is the person that would be in charge of giving lashes while slaves would be working in the fields. Solomon rode around Epps’s fields on a horse for eight years, but it was not mentioned in the movie. The only time where we see Solomon giving forced punishment in the movie is the brutal whipping of Patsey. Once a person sees that scene in the movie, it seemed like Solomon was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that was Solomon’s job for a long eight years. If the movie included that aspect of the book, people would have a better understanding and could feel more sympathy for Solomon and the mental stress that added to his misery. When it comes to Hollywood movies it is hard to determine the fact from fiction, but the movie 12 Years a Slave, did a better job than most at portraying the truth of what Solomon’s narrative was really about. When comparing the book and movie side by side as to which narrative you would get the best experience from, the book offers the most meaningful, truthful, and effective way of understanding what really happened in Solomon Northup’s 12 years as a
In Solomon Northup’s memoir, Twelve Years A Slave, he depicts the lives of African Americans living in the North as extremely painful and unjust. Additionally, they faced many hardships everyday of their lives. For one, they were stripped of their identities, loved ones, and most importantly their freedom. To illustrate this, Northup says, “He denied that I was free, and with an emphatic oath, declared that I came from Georgia” (20). This quote discusses the point in which Northup was kidnapped, and how he was ultimately robbed of his freedom, as well as his identity. Furthermore, not only were his captors cruel and repulsive, so was the way in which they treated African Americans. For instance, Northup states, “…Freeman, out of patience, tore Emily from her mother by main force, the two clinging to each other with all their might” (50). In this example, a mother is being parted from her child despite her cries and supplications, the slave owner
Solomon was a man that fell into these hands of misconception and kidnappers similar to Patty Cannon. Solomon Northup was one of the few that escaped the grasps of slavery. He wrote his own book, 12 Years a Slave, and even had a movie crea... ... middle of paper ... ... guilty.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: A Perspective on the Evils of Slavery
Extreme violence is central in Northup’s story, 12 Years a Slave; he emphasizes that the slave owner’s authority was controlled by terrorizing slaves they owned with powering violence. Nailed to the floor, Northup experienced painful activities to his naked body after he awoke in a slave pen; his enslavers paused only to ask for him to accept his new status
From before the country’s conception to the war that divided it and the fallout that abolished it, slavery has been heavily engrained in the American society. From poor white yeoman farmers, to Northern abolitionist, to Southern gentry, and apathetic northerners slavery transformed the way people viewed both their life and liberty. To truly understand the impact that slavery has had on American society one has to look no further than those who have experienced them firsthand. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and advocate for the abolitionist, is on such person. Douglass was a living contradiction to American society during his time. He was an African-American man, self-taught, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and a robust writer. Douglass displayed a level of skill that few of his people at the time could acquire. With his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself, Douglass captivated the people of his time with his firsthand accounts into the horror and brutality that is the institution of slavery.
Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery around 1818, will forever remain one of the most important figures in America's struggle for civil rights and racial equality. As an ex-slave, his inspiration grew beyond his boarders to reach the whole world. Without any formal education, Douglass escaped slavery and became a respected American diplomat, a counselor to four presidents, a highly regarded speaker, and an influential writer. By common consent Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) is recognized as the best among the many slave narratives that appeared before the Civil War. He amazed people when he spoke bravely in his Fourth of July speech. He spoke out against oppression throughout America and abroad, and his struggle for freedom, self-discovery, and identity stands as a testament for all time, for all people. Although some people accused him of lying, exaggerating, and using his narrative and his well-known Fourth of July speech as part of an abolitionist plot, Douglass was able to clearly demonstrate his talents, sensitivity, and intellectual capacity by revealing the truth about the lives, culture, and psychological struggles of American slaves.
This novel was a very long and strenuous read. Solomon included many details about the process of planting and harvesting cotton or the appearance of a man from head to foot, for example. This painted an extremely accurate picture in the reader’s head, however it made the story boring and slow. There were also a lot of old-fashioned words that I had to look up before I understood sentences. Although the novel was slow and old-fashioned, I would recommend this book to students who wished to learn more about this time period because it certainly helps certain aspects easier to comprehend. Twelve Years a Slave gave me a different perspective to slavery, and a different way of viewing it.
In his true-life narrative "Twelve Years a Slave," Solomon Northup is a free man who is deceived into a situation that brings about his capture and ultimate misfortune to become a slave in the south. Solomon is a husband and father. Northup writes:
The topic of slavery in the United States has always been controversial, as many people living in the South were supportive of it and many people living in the North were against it. Even though it was abolished by the Civil War before the start of the 20th century, there are still different views on the subject today. Written in 1853, the book Twelve Years a Slave is a first person account of what it was like for Solomon Northup to be taken captive from his free life in the North and sold to a plantation as a slave in the South, and his struggle to regain his freedom. Through writing about themes of namelessness, inhumanity, suffering, distrust, defiance, and the desire for freedom, Northup was able to expose the experiences and realities of slavery.
In Solomon Northup’s narrative, 12 years a slave, he shares a story of the horrors of his past that was a lifelong reality to many African Americans throughout American history. Northup, being a free man of Saratoga, New York, was stripped of his freedom and sold ‘down the river’ to the Bayou Boeuf of Louisiana and was bound to slavery for twelve years. Along with recounting the gruesome hardships and labor that he had to endure, Northup also gives detailed accounts of the lives of fellow slaves that he comes across, primarily, women. Northup’s narrative allows readers to see that the hardships that slave women experienced by far surpassed anything that a slave man could endure. Stripped of their families, beaten relentlessly and forever victims
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like.
Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was written by Frederick Douglass himself. He was born into slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland in approximately 1817. He has, "…no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it" (47). He became known as an eloquent speaker for the cause of the abolitionists. Having himself been kept as a slave until he escaped from Maryland in 1838, he was able to deliver very impassioned speeches about the role of the slave holders and the slaves. Many Northerners tried to discredit his tales, but no one was ever able to disprove his statements.
This document acknowledges the different set of rules about what the master expect from his slaves to do and not to do. The plantation rules described in this document is accounted from the diary of Bennet Barrow’s, the owner of 200 slaves on his plantation in Louisiana on May 1, 1838. No one will be allowed to leave the plantation without Barrow’s permission is the first of many plantation rules. To add, no one is allowed to marry out of the plantation and allowed to sell anything without their master’s consent. Rules implemented by Barrow is strictly dedicated to the safety and security of his plantation of from encroachment of outsiders. He is more concerned about his
“A narrative begins with one situation and, through a series of linked transformations, end with a new situation that brings about the end of the narrative” (Gillespie, 2006, p. 81). The trailer for 12 Years a Slave does this. It begins with a Solomon getting captured and forced into slavery. He starts to accept his slavery in the beginning, but then as the trailer goes on, he changes his perspective and starts to regain hope and fight for his freedom. The events that knocked him down in the beginning start to make him stronger and start a fire in his heart that cannot be put out by the slave