12 years a slave film critique essay

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12 Years a Slave: The Analysis of the Film

Introduction, historical accuracy, demographic, negative/positive aspects, works cited.

Reading history books is one way of learning about the past. However, many individuals need visual stimulation to be able to connect with a situation, person, or event that happened hundreds of years ago. Thus, movies based on memoirs or biographies are excellent ways for people to see and comprehend both physically and emotionally something that is challenging to imagine without the audio and video component. However, in order for the historical connotation to be truthful and close to reality, directors have to pay close attention to the source of information. On the other hand, the current trends create an environment in which the movie has to be honest yet captivating, so directors may add different effects or characters without changing the core of the story. An example of a movie that gives the audience the opportunity to percept history is 12 Years a Slave.

Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years of Slave is based on a memoir. The movie portrays the story of Solomon Northup, who is kidnapped as a free African-American living in New York (McQueen). He worked as a musician before two men offered him a job in another state. However, he ends up in a slave pen without anyone believing him about his status as a free man. Solomon is shipped to New Orleans before enduring torture and being sold again to another plantation owner. Edwin Epps is much more ruthless, making Solomon’s life an everyday struggle for survival. A Canadian worker who is a temporary worker at the plantation agrees to send a letter written by Northup to New York. Sometime later, the sheriff and two men, one of which was Solomon’s friend, arrive with the intention to take him home. Solomon reunites with his family and lives as a free man again, this time for the rest of his life. The movie highlights the nuances of slavery, racism, discrimination, and segregation in the 19th-century South.

Why 12 Years a Slave?

The movie was chosen because of the desire to understand the concept of slavery in the US from the perspective of a person who described his personal experiences. The contrast between being a free man and a property that can be sold or bought was the main reason why this particular film appeared to be most complex from a historical, social, and phycological perspective. Thus, 12 Years of Slavery was picked due to the topic that it touches upon, the events that it described, and the story behind the initial source.

The movie is historically accurate due to the fact that it was written by Solomon Northup himself, an African-American man who describes personal experiences in his memoirs. However, researchers point out that certain moments were slightly altered or enhanced to give the film a more contemporary overview as a way to create an emotional response from the viewers (Horton). However, the main events, the characters, and the overall storyline are close to the original book, which makes the film relatively accurate in terms of historical connotation. This enhances the movie because the audience can receive a first-hand experience of the horrendous circumstances which caused the book to be written. Furthermore, individuals who watch movies about such difficult topics as slavery may not make a link between what is shown on the screen and what actually happened. In the context of 12 Years a Slave , such conclusions are impossible to occur due to the reality factor.

The movie appeals to a large demographic since it is excellent from two perspectives: historical and artistic. People who would like to learn about US history can watch it to see the state of the country in the 19 th century. On the other hand, those who enjoy good cinema go through an emotional roller-coaster even without being interested in the background. Either way, it can be an exceptional experience that cannot leave audience members indifferent.

Based on personal objective and subjective overviews, the film is undoubtedly exceptional. The complex story, the cast, music, decorations, costumes, and the ambiguous feeling left after watching it are among the things that have to be mentioned in regard to some of the best aspects of the movie. In terms of factors to dislike, there is a lack of resistance to the portrayal in contrast with the original novel. Perhaps, the director chose to avoid such emphasis on slave resistance to create an atmosphere of desperation and hopelessness to highlight the main character’s agony, which is an understandable omission from an artistic viewpoint. The film could have been improved if more screen time had been used to show the main character’s life before slavery. It would have emphasized the contrast between freedom and enslavement and highlighted the emotionally challenging shift from being a human to being treated like property. The movie itself also featured the surprising aspect of masters preventing slaves from being knowledgeable, literary, and intelligent when it comes to writing and reading. Although, it is clear that this was done because of the relationship between literacy and freedom. Still, this was a surprising factor that I had not paid attention to before watching the film.

12 Years a Slave is an excellent story that portrays terrible things. It is important to highlight the historical accuracy of the movie, which did not take away from the movie’s captivating, emotional, and heartbreaking nature. The movie is educational without being overly documentary-like, which is a remarkable effect that the director managed to achieve. Overall, I am pleased with the choice to analyze this movie since I had the opportunity to learn more about history while watching an interesting, captivating, dramatic, yet beautiful piece of art.

Horton, Dana Renee. “‘You Will Sell the Negress!”: Using the Post-Neo-Slave Narrative to Revise Representations of Women in Django Unchained and 12 Years a Slave.” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-Present) , vol. 17, no. 2, 2018.

McQueen, Steve, director. 12 Years a Slave . Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2013.

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Don’t Look Away: On the Artistry and Urgency of “12 Years a Slave”

I believe in national memory. I believe in racial memory. “ 12 Years a Slave ” is about both kinds of memory, and how they are suppressed, and why they are suppressed, and why they shouldn’t be, and how art can tease them out and look at them honestly, without flinching.

The film’s script, by John Ridley , and its direction, by Steve McQueen , treat the experience of Solomon Northup ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ), a free man sold into bondage, as a series of meticulously described visceral moments, like “ Pickpocket ” or “ Taxi Driver ” or “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” or “ Apocalypse Now ” or “ Born on the Fourth of July .” The movie concentrates on how experiences looked and sounded and felt. It “remembers” slavery as individuals remember private traumas, but gives us just enough distance to process the cruelty. The director’s choreography is so exact that one can imagine a wooden frame around each image, or a proscenium. The effect is akin to a series of moving paintings, or long scenes in an opera or a religious play. The film is pain, transformed into real art, useful art, art that triggers empathy and understanding. It takes Black history, White history and American history out of the past and says, “This is happening right now. To you .”  It makes a true story from America’s deep past feel immediate, so that the viewer can go beyond, or beneath, the historical aspects, and understand the lived experience of slavery.  

The pre-credits prologue shows Northup fashioning a makeshift pen from a stick, using a smashed berry for ink, and trying to record his experiences on parchment, and failing, and tossing the instrument away and crying, because his tools are too crude. The movie that follows plays like the psychic rough draft of the story he’ll write later, when he has regained freedom and had time to heal and reflect. We’re seeing the intermediate stage of recollection: the jumble of sensations that memoirists must grapple with before they can shape and contain them with words. 

“12 Years a Slave” envisions Northup’s odyssey as a series of tableaus of suffering, endured and transcended but never forgiven.  The storytelling is similar to McQueen’s first two features, “ Hunger ” and “Shame.”  They could all be packaged together in a “Stations of the Cross” box set. The critic Noel Vera compares the hero of “Shame” to “a pilgrim on a personal Calvary,” and writers, “You get the impression that if McQueen had used unknown actors and just tilted his camera a few inches to the right or left of the shot’s focus, one might mistaken the film for something directed by Robert Bresson–back when Bresson thought there might be such a thing as a human soul worth saving.” These films are about the landscapes of bodies and spirits tested and twisted, broken and exposed. They’re stripped-down, aestheticized but never prettified, made mythological but never abstract.

Legends and myths and religious fables are remembered not just for their content but because of how they’re told: directly, always appealing to emotion and what we think of as plain truth. 

The truth of “12 Years a Slave” is basic, a list of experiential facts: Families traded like livestock, separated and sold. Men and women and children renamed and brainwashed, worked from dawn to dusk, and awakened from deep sleep, and made to dance and sing, and told to strip and be whipped, or raped. 

Chains on wrist and ankles. Lashes on the back. Flesh cracked like wet sod. That’s what this country was founded on, along with ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That’s what this film is about. That’s what Americans deny when they praise the ideals of equality while downplaying the gory reality, on grounds that it’s in the past now, and it doesn’t do anyone any good to “dwell” on it. 

“It is a simple fact that what is true and right is true and right for all,” says a Canadian abolitionist ( Brad Pitt ) in a scene late in the film. What is true and right for all is that slavery and exploitation are evil. 

Of course the problem with saying that is that it invites viewers to brush it off, by saying something like, “Well, I already know slavery was evil, so I don’t need to see a film telling me that slavery was evil, and hey, look, a new ‘Hunger Games’ movie.”  “12 Years a Slave” pushes past such rationalizations, not simply by repeating abstractly and distantly that, as a matter of fact yes, slavery was evil, or by speechifying about it in a way that invites viewers to nod and think, “Ah, yes, how horrible it was! And what a relief that it’s not happening here now!” but by showing, in a series of very straightforward and exact scenes, precisely  how  slavery was evil—by envisioning its day-to-day particulars in terms that anyone can understand, even if they don’t know anything about slavery except that it once existed in the United States of America, and that the Civil War ended it.  

That a film as searing and necessary as “12 Years a Slave” is having trouble drawing large audiences is a testament to the power of denial. That so few mainstream films have been made about slavery is also a testament to the power of denial.

You can tell what a country finds most shameful in its history by looking at how long it took for that country’s popular art to begin seriously addressing that history. The first films about slavery (as opposed to films about the American south that happened to include slave characters) did not appear until the 1960s, six decades after the creation of motion pictures. Most of them had elements of genre or exploitation. Few addressed the subject in a straightforward way. Even the most high-profile recent film about slavery, “Django Unchained,” gave itself a cushion of cowboy action and revenge fantasy, even as it depicted the casual physical savagery of slavery with an unprecedented (for Hollywood) frankness. 

There is no genre cushion in “12 Years a Slave.” None. 

It’s simply saying, “Here is the story of a man who experienced slavery.”  

As we watch it, we don’t just understand Solomon’s experience. We start to grasp why films like this one are so rare: because Americans do not want to talk about slavery, or think about slavery, much less pay to see a film about slavery. 

It’s too shameful.  

Northup plays the fiddle. Northup gets approached to play the fiddle in Washington, D.C. He is drugged and sold into slavery in an auction, stripped naked and inspected like a farm animal. He’s made to work at a plantation run by a master who thinks showing slaves a glimmer of compassion makes him a good person. Solomon rebels against an overseer who’s cruel and petty even by the standards of overseers. He gets sold to a different plantation run by a monstrous man described as a “n—-r breaker,” and is confronted with the worst of the many horrible truths he absorbs during his years of bondage: that after a while, this kind of life grinds the righteousness and even the sorrow from everyone, even passionate and moral people, and replaces them with but one desire: to survive.

The master’s indifference to suffering is passed down to the overseers and plantation workers, and ultimately to the slaves and their children. 

By the end, Northup, who had previously survived a lynching for daring to fight an overseer, obeys an order to whip another slave, the new master’s concubine. There are tears in Solomon’s eyes, but he does as he’s told. He’s learned his lesson. Don’t argue. Don’t question. Look away. Survive.

This is how evil is perpetuated: it wears people down. They can’t imagine life any other way. They’re afraid. They’re exhausted. They’re numb. The victims just want to avoid pain or worse. The perpetrators just want to be able to look at themselves in a mirror and say, “This is normal behavior. There is nothing unusual about it.” 

Everyone looks away.

When a man arrives at the plantation bearing proof that Solomon was once a free man and demanding his release, the master who put that whip in Solomon’s hand reacts with petulant fury, like a child whose toy is about to be taken from him. Solomon would like to bring other slaves to freedom with him, but he can’t.  A series of post-credits titles inform us that Solomon took his two kidnappers to court but lost the case. He never got justice in the Hollywood sense. He just had to learn to live with the pain of his experience. He wrote a book about it, a book that enlightened many people and gained him some measure of fame, but accolades don’t make whip scars heal.

The film’s greatest scene finds Solomon hanged by the overseer he attacked, bare toes on-point in slippery mud, barely saving himself from strangulation. McQueen holds the shot long after the shock of the hanging has worn off. He keeps holding it after every other dramatically significant participant in the scene has gone inside. He keeps holding the shot, and holding it. 

After a while we see action return to the background behind Solomon. Workers go on about their business. A reverse angle puts Solomon in the foreground, out-of-focus, still dangling from the noose and gasping for breath. Over his shoulder, in focus, slave children play. We realize this is a normal sight for everyone on the plantation: a personnel matter. Nobody’s shocked by it, except the man dangling from the rope.

This is how a film transforms history into experience. This is how a film explains what slavery meant, not just to the body, but to the body politic. 

It’s not just about the infliction of pain by oppressors, and the endurance of pain by the oppressed. It’s about looking away, even if the person being mistreated resembles you, because you’re glad it’s not you.  It’s about the entrenched status quo that lets atrocities continue for years or decades. It’s about suppression. It’s about denial.  

Solomon was twelve years a slave. The United States was 89 years a slaver. 

Slavery didn’t persist for decades because every living free man and woman in the United States was an irredeemably evil person. It continued because people got used to it and compartmentalized it. What happened was a national version of the personal denials shown in “12 Years a Slave.”

White people in free states told themselves, “The country would be better off if there were no slavery, but it’s been a part of life since the country was founded, and it’s probably never going away, but at least it’s not legal in my state.” White people in slave states who did not own slaves told themselves, “I don’t personally own slaves, so I’m not part of the problem,” while looking away from the scarred men and women clearing underbrush and picking crops and hoping that somehow, someday they wouldn’t have to see that anymore, or explain it to their children. White people in free and slave states who could not rationalize or compartmentalize slavery became abolitionists or helped abolitionists. Free Blacks tried to forget or distance themselves from the continuing reality of slavery or else worked to end it.

But collectively the nation made peace with slavery, accepted slavery, for a very long time. 

It wasn’t until the two decades leading up to the start of the Civil War that the majority of Whites began thinking of slavery as anything other than a part of the national reality, and abolitionist beliefs as anything other than a utopian fantasy, or a nuisance to commerce. 

Part of the genius of “12 Years a Slave” is its capacity for showing us that this sort of thinking—characteristic, we like to tell ourselves, of a distant and thoroughly discredited past—continues today, in a watered-down form.  We encounter it again whenever movies such as this one are discussed. Or not discussed. Or avoided.

When a viewer says, “I know slavery was wrong, so I don’t need to see this film,” or, “I saw scenes from ‘Roots’ in school, I get it,” or “I saw ‘Django Unchained,’ what is it with all these slavery movies dredging up the past?” it’s a denial, a suppression.

This happened in the United States of America. Its legacy is all around us. We need to look. We need to imagine. 

In one of the movie’s most extraordinary close-ups, a traumatized Solomon looks offscreen for a while, his gaze slowly moving around the edges of the frame, until he seems to make eye contact with the viewer. You want to reach out to him. You want to help him. You want to free him. But you can’t. It’s not possible. It’s not done. All you can do is stare  into his beseeching eyes.

After a while he gives up and looks somewhere else.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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The Movie “12 Years a Slave” Critical Essay

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• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
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Introduction

Review of the movie, works cited.

The American society has encountered many upheavals and changes within the past three centuries. Such developments have resulted in different social and political relationships in the country.

Different conflict theories examine the origin of social struggles and disagreements. Such theories also explain why many people disagree with their leaders. Human beings require specific rights and needs. The denial of such needs will eventually result in violence.

The film “12 Years a Slave” gives a clear picture of slavery in the United States. This dark history created complex socio-economic and political developments in the country. Such issues also continue to affect the lives of many Americans. This paper examines the movie “12 Years a Slave” using different conflict resolution theories.

The history of America explains why many human beings fight for power. Hans Morgenthau offers a powerful analysis of human conflict using his Realism Theory. According to Morgenthau, human beings tend “to have insatiable lust for control and power” (Molly 12).

This situation produces social disagreements and conflicts. This argument also explores the actions and behaviors of many political leaders (Molly 13). Many landowners in the film such as Edwin Epps oppress their slaves. Many “whites believed that it was right for them to oppress their slaves” (Burton 41).

Northup finds it hard to cooperate with individuals such as John Tibeats. This situation occurs because many people want to control others. Epps also rapes Patsey because she cannot fight for her rights ( 12 Years a Slave ). Brown, James Burch, and Hamilton are also able to smuggle different slaves.

According to John Burton’s Basic Human Needs Theory, “people have unique needs that must be fulfilled” (Burton 19). Social struggles are usually determined by the nature of such human needs. Human beings are usually motivated to engage in violent behaviors (Burton 42).

Throughout the film, it is notable that Solomon Northup works hard in order to achieve his goals. He eventually finds himself in the hands of different slave-owners. He works hard in order to become free. He also fights back after being attacked by John Tibeats ( 12 Years a Slave ).

This film explains how the society fails to fulfill Northup’s needs. The existence of unfulfilled needs eventually results in social conflicts. Sociologists should therefore work hard in order to satisfy these human needs. Many slaves such as Patsey also encounter different challenges.

According to Ted Gurr’s Relative Deprivation Theory, people will always engage in various acts of violence. Ted believes that “a frustration-aggression mechanism is the leading cause of violence” (Gurr 38). Frustrations can also produce anger and pain.

This form of anger can eventually result in violence. Relative deprivation occurs “when people encounter major discrepancies between their gains and expectations” (Gurr 94). Deprivation can also cause violence or rebellion. This situation might occur even when the government fulfills the basic needs of its people.

Poor leadership can also result in violence. The stories presented in this film explain why many African Americans fought tirelessly for their rights. They were unhappy with the social, economic, and political issues affecting their lives.

The challenges encountered by Patsey shows clearly that many women suffered in the hands of different slave-owners ( 12 Years a Slave ). Bass and Northup are also saddened by the challenges encountered by different African Americans ( 12 Years a Slave ). This situation explains why inequality is experienced in the United States even today.

Johan Galtung’s Structural and Cultural Violence Theory examines the origin of human disagreements. Violence occurs whenever there are specific political and socio-economic arrangements in a given community. According to John Galtung, “structural or cultural violence will eventually result in direct violence” (Galtung 292).

However, this kind of violence arises from the existing structural developments. The “political and social conditions in a specific community can result in violence” (Galtung 294). That being the case, leaders and communities should work hard in order to deal with structural violence.

The existence of inequality has redefined the history of America. The movie explores how different African Americans such as Patsey encounter numerous problems.

The social and political conditions experienced during the time failed to favor many African Americans. This situation resulted in different conflicts. Bass is against slavery because it affects the lives of many people ( 12 Years a Slave ).

According Vamik Volkan’s Ethnic Violence and Psychoanalysis Theory, different groups tend to have unique values. Such traits dictate the behaviors of different communities. A “proper understanding of people’s psychologies can produce positive results” (Levine 276).

Human beings should understand the irrational attributes associated with violence. This approach will make it easier for every community to deal with ethnic violence. Many individuals “assign different cultural identities to other groups” (Levine 278).

The theory explains why different communities engage in endless fights. The concept of awareness can make it easier for many groups to deal with their conflicts. Throughout the Reconstruction Period, many whites believed that every black citizen was inferior.

Vamik’s theory explains why “class struggles have been experienced in the United States for many years” (Levine 279).

Max Weber has made numerous contributions to Modernization Theory. According to the sociologist, rationality is a core value towards modernization. The “main mission of every society is to be deliberated” (Wheeler 9). However, the absence of “a smooth process towards modernization will result in disagreements” (Wheeler 17).

This is the case because many people will always focus on their basic needs (Wheeler 18). This theory explains why “the idea of rationalization encouraged many African Americans to fight against slavery and inequality” (Wheeler 18). Northup eventually becomes a free citizen. He eventually reunites with his family after 12 years of slavery.

The film “12 Years a Slave” explores the existence of conflicts in the American society. A proper understanding of the social, political, and economic backgrounds of different groups can result in better resolutions. Although the film does not offer the best resolutions, it encourages people to focus on the needs of their neighbors.

Slavery is a malpractice than can result in disagreements and class struggles. Hans Morgenthau’s theory describes the origin of inequality. The government should use the above theories in order to fulfill the needs of its citizens (Burton 92). Every society should embrace the best practices in order to deal with different conflicts.

For instance, the American government should have dealt with slavery during the period. The film explains how conflicts and class struggles emerged in America during the time. This development will continue to affect the lives of many Americans. Many descendants of these slaves are also struggling in order to achieve their goals.

12 Years a Slave. Ex. Prod. Brad Pitt. New York, NY: Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2013. DVD.

Burton, John. Conflict: Human Needs Theory. New York: McMillan, 2003. Print.

Galtung, Johan. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 27.3 (1990): 291-305. Print.

Gurr, Ted. Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2012. Print.

Levine, Howard. “Large-Group Dynamics and World Conflict: the Contributions of Vamik Volkan.” The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Associations 54.1 (2006): 273-280. Print.

Molly, Sean. “Truth, Power, Theory: Hans Morgenthau’s Formulation of Realism.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 15.1 (2004): 1-23. Print.

Wheeler, Norton. “Modernization Discourse with Chinese Characteristics.” Springer 22.3 (2005): 3-24. Print.

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Movie Reviews

For a free spirit, a grim '12 years' in chains.

Bob Mondello

Chiwetel Ejiofor (left) plays Solomon Northup, a New York freeman kidnapped into slavery in 1841 and eventually resold to plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). Francois Duhamel/Fox Searchlight Pictures hide caption

Chiwetel Ejiofor (left) plays Solomon Northup, a New York freeman kidnapped into slavery in 1841 and eventually resold to plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).

12 Years a Slave

• Director: Steve McQueen
• Genre: Biopic, drama
• Running Time: 133 minutes

Rated R for violence/cruelty, some nudity and brief sexuality

With: Chiwetel Ejiofor , Michael Fassbender , Lupita Nyong'o , Benedict Cumberbatch

(Recommended)

Just a few years before the start of the Civil War, two anti-slavery books became best-sellers in the United States. One was Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Harriet Beecher Stowe opus that went on to become the best-selling novel of the 19th century.

The other was a memoir with a mouthful of a title: Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and rescued in 1853 from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana .

Twelve Years a Slave — successful enough to prompt multiple editions before falling into obscurity after the war — was rediscovered by scholars in the 1960s and has now been transformed into a wrenching, soul-stirring film from British director Steve McQueen.

The film begins with an enslaved Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) cutting sugar cane on a Louisiana plantation, then flashes back to the life he'd been leading just a few years earlier in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. There, he was a musician of stature, living with his wife and three kids in comfort and even some luxury. A free black family in a state that did not allow slavery, they inhabited a world of learning and culture.

In fact it's Solomon's talent as a violinist that leads to his downfall. He accompanies two men to Washington for what he thinks is a fiddling job, only to have them get him drunk and betray him. New York has laws protecting its African-American residents. The nation's capital does not. He wakes up in chains.

Patsy (Lupita Nyong'o), another of Epps' slaves, becomes the subject of her master's unwanted attentions — and the abuse of his jealous wife. Francois Duhamel/Fox Searchlight Pictures hide caption

Patsy (Lupita Nyong'o), another of Epps' slaves, becomes the subject of her master's unwanted attentions — and the abuse of his jealous wife.

Without papers to establish his identity, far from anyone who knows him, Solomon is helpless when his kidnappers rename him Platt and ship him off to Louisiana to be sold. As other desperate men in chains tell him, he'll be killed if he even says his real name, let alone tries to escape. Survival means "keeping your head down," he's told.

"I don't want to survive," he gasps. "I want to live."

Still, survival comes first. Sold to a Baptist preacher (Benedict Cumberbatch) who realizes there's more to him than meets the eye, and who treats him, as another slave puts it, like "prized livestock," Solomon does keep his head down. He bides his time, and urges others around him to do the same.

Inwardly, though, he's seething. And when another slave accuses him of truckling to his master, he roars, "My back is thick with scars for protesting my freedom."

McQueen keeps those scars — and the brutality that creates them — front and center in 12 Years a Slave, with incidents that scald, and searing supporting performances, particularly from Michael Fassbender (star of McQueen's previous art-house films Hunger and Shame) as a sadistic but strangely conflicted slave owner.

But it is Ejiofor — bewildered, sorely tested, morally towering — whose staggered dignity anchors the film.

John Ridley's script brings both historical sweep and an urgent intimacy to Northup's story — no small accomplishment. Rife with visceral beatings, multiple lynchings and an almost casual air of psychological cruelty, 12 Years a Slave is anything but easy to watch, but it is powerfully moving.

It's also a powerful corrective, because it so skillfully links that brutality to the sort of tranquil antebellum South that Hollywood has often peddled — the broad porches, the hoop skirts, the fields fluffy with cotton. It will be hard for audiences to see those images ever again without thinking about the savagery and injustice that propped them up.

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12 Years A Slave: An essay, a review.

I purposely waited until saw McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave twice before writing an essay in dedication to the thought this film is responsible for provoking. I wanted to ensure that I hadn’t been beguiled by the beauty of the Louisiana setting, the intriguing melancholic score or the creative nuances that make this film easily one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve ever had.

Having said all of that, anyone who’s seen the film will agree or flounder trying to argue that the transfer of Northup’s horrifying experiences within the physical and spiritual confines of slavery from print to film wasn’t an industry clinic in screenplay and film adaptation.

But enough movie love, now for a healthy dose of relativity. As much as I love this film, I loved the fact that it was even made more . This story needed to be told on film. In all my years of thinking I was well versed in what slavery was, I never seriously extended my curiosity toward the exploration of the inhumane reality that “free” Black people were sold into slavery right on North American soil. To further illustrate; Often when we think in terms of slavery, we tend to romanticize that Black People were only kidnapped, stolen and whisked away from the shores of Africa. I was ignorant in not considering how often “free” Black People were kidnapped, stolen and whisked away from the shores of the Atlantic, renamed and sold into slavery right here in North America.

In a way that Roots, Amistad, Beloved, The Color Purple, Glory, Imitation Of Life, A Raisin In The Sun, Queen and other film depictions of Black People surviving in a disordered world at the end of the white man’s whip and under the white man’s arbitrary control, 12 Years A Slave surpasses it’s cinematographic peers. I liken it to The Passion Of The Christ in the sense that, although we have the biblical and apostolic recount of Jesus’ tortured last days on Earth; Until Mel Gibson unabashedly displayed his torture on film, for me, it was merely a story . Slavery is not a story. It is a poignant, relevant and historical reality as was the violence, torture and degradation. As is the social psychopathy that has thus evolved because of it. For me, this movie epitomizes living in “niggery” and is a point blank example of why I believe that no Black Person should use or condone the use of the *N* word and especially by other Black People. There is an abomination of power within that word and it is loaded with venom that has been used to dehumanize us from the dawn of the North Atlantic slave trade up to this very second in time.

Like many of you, I can recall the annual Roots marathon during Black history month and being expected to re-watch it year after year. My parents knew that it was important for me to see the human travesty that was slavery and that reading about it simply wasn’t enough. This is also why I insisted my teens watch this film. It wasn’t just that I wanted them to see a contemporary take on our history as North American Black People, I need them to understand that if there was ever a time to be a Black Person living in North America, it’s now. There is simply no excuse for average or sub par effort when they do not face the constraints our ancestors had to and who did not give up and accept the status quo and merely exist; They endured in the hope that one day their generations would live . I remember my father being angered by the scenes in Roots and his explosions of emotion when he felt the anguish and helplessness of Kunta Kinte. Even into his mid 70’s, Daddy claims he’d rather have died trying to free himself of bondage by inflicting violence on anyone in his path rather than accept life as a slave. I’ve seen this movie in theaters twice now and both times, I kept wishing for Django to ride up and kill every oppressor in his path.

As a demonstrative period piece, this story allows for no heroes and makes no false pretenses about who people were in relation to the social hierarchy in this time. The white women in this film felt no disregard toward owning, degrading and brutalizing people and even encouraged it while, rare white people, who were intrinsically abhorred by slavery still referred to Black People as “niggers”. A reminder that language is ultra powerful when objectifying humans. I walked away feeling like the majority of white people in this time were absolutely terrifying because they were absolutely crazy. The violence inflicted on human beings at the hands of other human beings is unfathomable and yet, I understand that in order for slavery to have been sustained, immeasurable violence, abuse, neglect and brainwash had to exist and the people carrying out this violence had obvious mental issues, although lucid enough to utilize the bible as a tool of obedience to assert power over others; It takes a disconnected and sick individual to not see a fellow human as a fellow human and deduce that they worth only the value that they serve as commodities .

In terms of history and violence as it relates to enslaving and violating human beings, we often neglect to validate her story. Without giving any of the story away, Patsy is absolute misery personified. Patsy reminds us that Black Women existed for three reasons: To labor, bear commodities and satisfy the lust and desires of their controllers. The list of desires is open ended. Patsy is the reason I will never classify myself as a feminist for I believe the disdain, superiority, ignorance, insecurity and hatred portrayed by the white women in this film was an accurate depiction. It was was alive and kicking during the suffragette movement and the contemporary feminist movement is rife with discord now. I’m a womanist and my heart aches for Patsy who couldn’t be protected by men who had also been dehumanized and made powerless to protect themselves let alone others by the very same men who victimized her. There are no heroes in this movie. The actions of every character are motivated simply by social status, lack of choice and survival. At times, the imagery in 12 Years A Slave depicting this powerlessness is enough to make you vomit.

Overall, I think this movie is an important film and that it is a “must see” for a variety of reasons. As a period piece, Spielberg’s award winning Lincoln, which I actually found quite boring, pales in comparison. Canada’s own Lawrence Hill’s, The Book Of Negroes is being adapted to film and is set to release in 2014. Now this is a story I can’t wait to see on screen. Although the story is fictitious, it’s set to the degrading reality which is our history rooted in slavery and I am excited to see the heroine Aminata come to life and leap from the page. To watch Her evolve from a curious and sheltered child stolen African child to an intelligent, brave and industrious grown African Woman living within and beyond slavery in North America will be worthwhile.

Isn’t that what we’re all really doing anyway; Trying to live beyond slavery? There is no “post racial” era and Jim Crow hasn’t up and died. North America is still very much polarized in terms Black and White and, structural, intentional and institutionalized racism is typical. Are we really so far removed from the plight of our grandparents? Are we really so far removed from Solomon who probably never thought that as a “free” Black Man living in the North, he’d be sold into slavery; Like the Black Man whose rights and freedoms are infringed upon with racial profiling or, locked up for driving while Black with no access to decent legal representation? The Black Men and Women who’re handcuffed, arrested and humiliated for innocently shopping at Macy’s. Both the book and film are the recount of a fascinating and thought provoking experience but, now that we’re thinking and talking about it, what are we to do with the insight?

Light reflected is enlightenment infinite.

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Tagged as 12 Years A Slave , African Canadian , Afro-Canadian , Afro-Centric Education , Black Canadian , black literature , Re-Education , Womanist , women

4 responses to “ 12 Years A Slave: An essay, a review. ”

Are we living in a post-racial and more tolerant society??

Peace Sistar BlackLit101…I agree with you concerning the violence put upon our people being forced into becoming enslaved servants. However the imagery of who were slaves and who were masters/owners is absolutely incorrect. Should a child view this movie, yet not understanding the complicated dialogue will remember two things for sure. (1) White people are owners and masters and can dominate over (2) the Black people referred to as slaves. Solomon was enslaved in New Orleans, LA and it was well known and is well documented that the population of people in Louisiana, especially New Orleans the population including the enslaved ran from light bright people that looked white, to dark skinned people. In fact “massa” had been having sex with his slaves for many, many years. As such there were many, many children running around the plantation that looked not only like “massa” in physical features but in skin tone as well. In fact, the way the Homer vs Furgueson case was hinged upon placing a Black man on a train in New Orleans that would be barely distinguishable from a white man. By 1896 only 50+ yeas from the time Solomon was forced into slavery in New Orleans, when the Jim Crow laws went into effect, the white street car drivers sued the state of Louisiana stating it would be an undue burden on the drivers to try and distinguish who was white and who was black. Surely if the people were portrayed properly we would see dark people owning slaves and we would have seen white people as the enslaved. But we don’t. This reinforces images as whites supreme and Blacks subservient. Yet, and still, other images of Solomon in New York shows him as the “only” free Black man. And during a scene a Black slave was so intrigued to see a free Black family that he just walks into a haberdashery just staring. False images. When he reaches DC, again he is the only free Black person shown on film. I thought really??? J.A. Rogers has helped to dispel this myth. The child who sees this movie will have emblazoned in their minds supreme white people and subservient Black people. It’s time to show the many, many white people that were shipped to the Americas as slaves. In fact this is the etymon of the word kidnapped. White children nabbed in Europe to be sent to the Americas as slaves. The brain works by collecting symbols. No matter the dialogue, the brain especially of children will recall images of the supreme white slave owner and the down trodden Black slave.

Thank you for your comments Amenta. Have you read the book that the film is adapted from? I think that McQueen did a wonderful job is staying true to the narrative while balancing the scenery/imagery. The STORY is the point and I do believe he got that part exact on point. ~R

Great review sis. The film was well acted. Lupita Nyongo was very impressive in her role. The cinematography was beautiful as well. I haven’t read the book yet. But I plan on it.

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‘12 Years a Slave’: Movie Review Essay

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Introduction to '12 years a slave', solomon northup's journey from freedom to slavery, depiction of slavery and inhuman treatment, life on the plantation: from ford to epps, patsey's suffering and solomon's struggle for survival, solomon's fight for freedom.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — 12 Years a Slave — Evaluation Of Historical Accuracy In The Film 12 Years A Slave

Evaluation of Historical Accuracy in The Film 12 Years a Slave

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The Cultural Significance of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave

by Mollie Lieblich

Drugged and beaten, Solomon Northup was illegally kidnapped from his hometown in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York and taken to Washington, D.C. in 1841. He woke up in the slave pen where he was sadistically remade from a black free man in the North into a slave in the South. Questioning his fate, Northup asked, “could it be possible that I was thousands of miles from home—that I had been chained and beaten without mercy—that I was even herded with a drove of slaves, a slave myself? 1  Detailing his transformation into “chattel” property, Northup recollected that the slave trader, “would make us hold up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would feel our hands and arms and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth, precisely as a jockey examines a horse which he is about to barter for or purchase.” 2  Forced to accept his new-found status as a captured slave, Solomon Northup was sold “down river” to Louisiana and labored for twelve years, toiling on cotton and sugar plantations in the South.

Set to come out in October 2013, Brad Pitt and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in a movie “12 Years a Slave” directed by Steve McQueen based on Solomon Northup’s Slave narrative.

Solomon Northup’s slave narrative, Twelve Years A Slave; Narrative of a Citizen of New-York, Solomon Northup, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, Rescued in 1853, From a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana, achieved a remarkable degree of success as an abolitionist indictment against slavery . First published in 1853, three years after the Fugitive Slave Act, Northup’s narrative served as an important cultural symbol of slave life on southern plantations during antebellum America before the Civil War.

Born into freedom, Northup was kidnapped into slavery at the age of thirty. Lured to Washington, D.C. in 1841 by the promise of easy employment, fast money, and adventure, Northup was in reality drugged, beaten, and sold into slavery within sight of the nation’s capital. According to historian Ira Berlin, Northup “joined the mass of black humanity—some one million in number—that was forcibly transported South to reconstruct the plantation economy on new ground, as the center of American slavery shifted from the production of tobacco and rice in the seaboard states to that of cotton and sugar in the interior.” 3 Between 1790 and 1860, approximately one million African Americans were transported from the Upper South to the Deep South in the domestic slave trade. 4

While in captivity, Northup wrote letters to family and friends in the North which later became the raw materials of his slave narrative. From the 1740’s to 1865, approximately sixty-five autobiographical slave narratives were published in book or pamphlet form. 5  Created as propaganda for abolitionism, slave narratives often conformed to reoccurring narrative structures and literary conventions. Authenticity was considered essential. Most pre-emancipation slave narratives include phrases such as “written by himself” or “herself” on title pages, as well as numerous testimonials, prefaces, and letters of endorsement by white abolitionists and supporters. The narratives usually began, “I was born,” identifying a specific birthplace but no date of birth, since slaves often did not have that knowledge. Many narratives also included a photo or engraved portrait of the author and included appendices— bills of sale, free papers, newspaper clippings, sermons, speeches, poems simultaneously upheld the legitimacy of their story while arguing the case against slavery. 6  Slave narratives proved that, despite the odds, many slaves managed to escape their degradation and learned how to read and write. After escaping their bondage and making contacts with abolitionists, they were able to tell their tale to others.

When the abolitionist movement identified ex-slaves interested in publishing their stories, white editors conformed narratives to the dictates of nineteenth century sentimental literature in order to appeal to audiences nationwide. Publishers and editors reinforced themes that shocked the nation.  

Twelve Years A Slave —The Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup

Even when ex-slaves wrote their own narratives, many struggled to gain full free expression and narrative authority from the restrictions of white editorial control. Solomon Northup’s experience in slavery quickly became national news after his rescue in 1853 from a cotton plantation in Louisiana. Promoted by abolitionist leaders like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Lloyd Garrison, Northup’s book quickly became a strong seller, going through half a dozen printings. 7 At three hundred and thirty pages, Northup’s is one of the longest narratives ever written. To counter critics who would have discredited his narrative as fabrication, Northup—unlike Frederick Douglass or other authors of slave life who preferred generalities and employed pseudonyms—loaded his account with specifics. He cited actual names, places and dates so that his readers could identify and bring his captors to trial. Twelve Years A Slave , Northup declared, would “present a full and truthful statement of all the principal events in the history of my life, and…portray the institution of slavery as I have seen and known it.” 8  Northup wanted to present an accurate, first-hand account of the atrocities and terrors of slavery and to bring his captors to trial.

Violence, Plantation Work, and the Desecration of the Family

Twelve Years A Slave is one of the most authentic descriptions of slavery from the viewpoint of the slave himself. 9  Extreme violence is central in Northup’s narrative; he emphasizes that the slave owner’s authority was only maintained by terrorizing enslaved black people they owned with relentless physical and psychological violence. Whips, paddles, shackles, and the stocks make repeat appearances, especially in Solomon’s description of his life as a newly kidnapped free man. Stripped of his clothing and nailed to the floor, Northup endured blow after blow to his naked body after he awoke in a slave pen; his enslavers paused only to ask if their prisoner would accept his new status. As Northup recollected,

As soon as these formidable whips appeared, I was seized by both of them, and roughly divested of my clothing. My feet, as has been stated, were fastened to the floor […]. With the paddle, Burch commenced beating me. Blow after blow was inflicted on my naked body. When his unrelenting arm grew tired, he stopped and asked if I still insisted I was a free man. I did insist upon it, and then the blows were renewed, faster and more energetically, if possible, than before.

–solomon northup (44-45).

It was only after the paddle broke and his enslaver seized a rope to continue beating him that Northup was finally silenced into accepting his new identity as a slave. In these scenes of brutality, Northup insisted such sadistic events were so traumatic that he could still feel them while writing. “I thought I must die beneath the lashes of the accursed brute. Even now the flesh crawls upon my bones, as I recall the scene. I was all on fire. My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell.”

The second major theme in Northup’s narrative is the constant and unrelenting hardship of plantation work. The images that Northup captures in his descriptions of life and labor on the plantations of Louisiana depict the sheer exhaustion, monotony, and fear that each slave struggled with physically and psychologically. As Northup recalled,

An hour before daylight the horn is blown. Then the slaves arouse, prepare their breakfast, fill a gourd with water […] and hurry to the field again […]. Then the fears and labors of another day begin; and until its close there is no such thing as rest. He fears he will be caught lagging through the day; he fears to approach the gin house with his basket-load of cotton at night; he fears, when he lies down, that he will oversleep himself in the morning. Such is a true, faithful, unexaggerated picture and description of the slave’s daily life, during the time of cotton-picking on the shores of Bayou Beouf. 10

Northup’s rendering of the daily life of slavery captures the incessant emotional and physical toll of slavery’s imprisonment.

Solomon Northup also detailed the experiences of the slave women he encountered during his twelve years as a slave, and especially elaborated on the experience of Patsey, a twenty-three-year-old slave who was the victim of a licentious master and a jealous mistress. Caught between her white mistress’s jealous wrath and the sexual abuse of her master, Northup recalled that Patsey lived her life in torment and fear,

If [Patsey] uttered a word in opposition to her master’s will, the lash was resorted to at once, to bring her to subjection; if she was not watchful about her cabin, or when walking in the yard, a billet of wood, or a broken bottle perhaps, hurled from her mistress’s hand, and would smite her unexpectedly in the face. The enslaved victim of lust and hate, Patsey had no comfort of her life. 11

Although Patsey was a faithful slave and worked in the cotton fields for her master’s profit, she became the helpless victim of her master’s lust. Pasty’s mistress took her jealous anger out on her female slave instead of finding fault in her husband. “Nothing delighted the mistress so much as to see [Patsey] suffer,” noted Northup. He continued, “more than once, when [master] Epps refused to sell her, has she tempted me with bribes to put her secretly to death, and bury her body in some lonely place in the margin of the swamp.” 12  Doubly abused by the sexual terror and physiological torment of her master and mistress, respectively, Patsey’s story represented the brutality of slavery experienced by bondswomen. At the hands of white men, Northup made clear, black women were sexually and physically exploited with impunity during slavery. This normalization of sexual exploitation of slave women reflected the racist perceptions and stigmatization of black women.

Female slaves also faced the separation of families and children. In his account, Northup noted the intense emotions of female slave mothers at the auction block. Relating the remorselessness of white slave traders who disregarded the feelings of slave mothers separated from their children, he recalled the intense grieving of a female slave named Eliza after she had been forcibly separated from her two young children. Eliza was overwhelmed with grief when a new white master purchased her children and not herself. As Northup noted,

All the time the trade was going on, Eliza was crying aloud, and wringing her hands. She besought the man not to buy [her child], unless he also bought herself and [her other small child]. She promised, in that case, to be the most faithful slave that ever lived. The man answered that he could not afford it, and then Eliza burst into a paroxysm of grief, weeping plaintively. 13

Forced to confront the realities of fleeting motherhood as a slave, female bondswomen suffered terribly from the emotional separation of themselves and their children in the uncertain world of the American slave trade. By displaying the abuse black women suffered during slavery—from sexual terror, physiological torment, and the separation of families—Northup’s narrative was able to evoke a sympathetic antislavery feeling in the Northern states in the decades before the Civil War by exposing the horrors upon its innocent victims.

The Process of Writing Solomon Northup’s Slave Narrative

Northup’s story was written immediately after his rescue while still fresh in his mind. His book had fewer romanticized memory errors which other slave narratives suffered from, such as the oral history interviews conducted by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of surviving ex-slaves during the 1930s. These narratives are used sparingly by historians since former slaves were interviewed in their old age and in many cases, the interviewer was white, who would either intimidate the former slave they were interviewing or the former slave would feel uncomfortable because of lingering racism prevalent during the 1930’s Jim Crow south.

To emphasize the narrative’s authenticity, Northup and his editor dedicated the 1854 second edition to Harriet Beecher Stowe, in recognition of her widely successful antislavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Northup’s experience as a slave depicted a “striking parallel” to Stowe’s fictitious account of the slave named Uncle Tom under the hands of his tyrannical master. In response to the critics who had denounced Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a sentimental, overly exaggerated portrayal of slavery, Stowe published A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1853 to prove that her novel was a truthful depiction of antebellum slavery. She wrote in A Key , “it is a singular coincidence, that Solomon Northup was carried to a plantation in the Red River county—that same region where the scene of Uncle Tom’s captivity was laid—and his account of this plantation, and the mode of life there, and some incidents which he describes, form a striking parallel to that history.” 14  The publication of Northup’s narrative, a year after Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, gave credibility to both of their works. Northup’s rendering of daily life on a Louisiana plantation served as an authentic parallel to Stowe’s fictitious story of Uncle Tom.

There is no way to verify who actually wrote Twelve Years A Slave , but historians speculate that it was a collaborative project between Solomon Northup and his white editor, David Wilson, who was a minor literary figure from a town in New York’s Hudson Valley. 15  Even if Northup was not the sole author, he was very involved in the creation of the book’s content. Wilson, trying to generate sales for his book, said that Northup “carefully perused the manuscript,” correcting even “trivial inaccuracies.” Over the years, Northup’s account has held up to all verification efforts. 16  In the “Editor’s Preface” to Twelve Years A Slave , Wilson refers to himself as the “editor” and mentions that due to “all the facts which have been communicated to him,” the work ended up being longer than originally anticipated. Northup wrote in the first person, and asserted in the first pages that his purpose was “to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage.” 17  In the wake of newspaper reports of his rescue from slavery, Henry Northup (a white attorney and lifelong friend from New York whose family had once owned Solomon’s father), Solomon Northup, and David Wilson collaborated and published his story within the first few months of his return to the North. Henry Northup gave Wilson an incentive to publish the book as quickly as possible in the wake of news reports of Solomon’s rescue. The attorney rightfully figured that information from the book would quickly reach readers who could, and who eventually did, identify the kidnappers.

A number of northern newspapers, such as The New York Tribune, Buffalo Express, Cincinnati Journal, and Syracuse Journal , praised the publication as a credible depiction of southern slavery and its degradation. Former slave and leading abolitionist Frederick Douglass praised the book in his northern newspaper, The North Star , as “a strange history; its truth is far greater than fiction. Think of it! For thirty years a man, with all a man’s hopes, fears, and aspirations—with a wife and children to call by the endearing names of husband and father—with a home, humble it may be, but still a home […], then for twelve years a thing, a chattel personal, classed with mules and horses, […] It chills the blood to think that such are.” 18  Press reviews from William Lloyd Garrison, (whose newspaper, The Liberator , called the book “a deeply interesting and thrilling narrative”) contributed to its success and convinced Northup to give lectures and turn it into a play. Northup’s Twelve Years A Slave was on par with other best-sellers of the day. In the years before the Civil War, nearly 30,000 copies of Northup’s book were sold. 19

The publication of slave narratives in the antebellum and postemancipation eras challenged former slaves to face their experiences in slavery and demanded that the nation remember it as part of a collective history. As Frederick Douglass warned in an 1884 speech, “It is not well to forget the past. The past is…the mirror in which we may discern the dim outlines of the future and by which we make them more symmetrical.” 20 Recollecting and remembering slavery not only served as a national project to acknowledge its brutality, but it also placed former black slaves at the center and emphasized their agency in the drama for emancipation. By publishing the traumatic aspects of his life in captivity as a southern slave, Northup brought to light the sadism of American slavery, raised awareness in Northern audiences, and brought national attention to the injustices brought upon him. His book served as a tool for redemption while raising the consciousness about the barbarity of slavery—the inhumane separation of families, the beatings and torture of overseers and masters, and the sexual exploitation of slave women. Whether we view these narratives as wholly factual or not, they serve as important cultural reminders of an ugly part of American history that left its imprint on those who were its victims as well as on American society as a whole.

12 Years A Slave - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

12 Years a Slave is a memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup, an African-American who was born free in New York state but kidnapped and sold into slavery. Essays could analyze the historical and societal context of the narrative, discuss its impact on the abolitionist movement, or compare it to other slave narratives and their portrayal of slavery. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to 12 Years A Slave you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

12 Years a Slave Movie Critique

12 Years a Slave is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, an American African man who was taken from the North and sold into slavery. This movie accurately describes what slaves went through in their lives. It shows everything from the slaves being sold, and separated from their families to them being beaten. To what life was like on the plantations, and how they were treated. Since slaves were seen as property, they were sold as such. They […]

12 Years a Slave Summary

Watching 12 Years A Slave gave me a very realistic, but very shocking visual about everything that we have learned in class regarding slavery this semester and how slavery really was in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in America. Before watching the movie, I thought I had a good idea of what slavery was like up until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865, which officially ended it in the United States of America. However, what […]

Twelve Years a Slave Movie Analysis

Twelve Years a Slave (2013) Director: Steve McQueen Title of work: Twelve Years a Slave Date of release: October 18, 2013 Good films are not only a source of positive emotions, but are also a critical analysis of events that have occurred. "Twelve Years a Slave directed by Steve McQueen" is a great movie based on a true story. This films context make the audience think during and after the movie is over. McQueen depicts slavery on three levels, with […]

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Main Issues of 12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup 2) Narrator: Author (Solomon Northup) Point of view: First person 3) Tone: determined Quote: After Solomon becomes a slave he gets some help from the others in which they say keep your head down if you want to survive with which he responds "I don't want to survive. I want to live"(Northup 71). This shows his determination because even if he has yet to become a slave he is determined to make it […]

My Impressions from 12 Years a Slave

Slavery was extremely important to America. I mean, it led to a civil war and it also lasted a very long time, looking back to 1619 through the 1800's, this is over 200 years. However, slavery is most important because we still struggle with its legacy today. The film, 12 Years a Slave, is aimed specifically at topical issues of slavery. The story really depicts the struggles African Americans were subjected to for these 12 years, the bondage of slavery […]

Who is Solomon Northup?

Solomon Northup was born in July 10, 1808 in Minerva, New York. His father, Mintus, was once a slave himself but was released into freedom due to the death of his former slave owner or "master". Solomon Northup and his brother, Joseph, grew up knowing freedom. Growing up, Solomon would help his father out on the farm. He also enjoyed reading and playing the violin. In 1829, at the age of 21, Solomon Northup married Anne Hampton on Christmas Day. […]

Solomon from 12 Years a Slave

12 years a slave book is a story of Solomon Northup who is a free black man, married and have 3 children who live in Saratoga Spring, New York. He's a talented carpenter and who can plays the violin for a living, until he met his kidnappers who lied, drugged, and sold him to a slavery. What makes Solomon northup's experience of slavery so different from others? Solomon background is started from his ancestors on his paternal side were slaves […]

12 Years a Slave: a Unique View on Slavery

Solomon Northup portrays an unique view to the narrative on slavery. He was born in New York as a free man. Northrop's father was a liberated slave, so while Northup knew of the horrors of slavery, he only knew the taste of freedom. In March of 1841, Solomon Northup agrees to join a circus as a fiddle player to make extra money for his family. While with the two men who recruited him into the circus, Abram Hamilton and Merrill […]

12 Years Slave Film Review

The motion picture opens with a gathering of slaves accepting direction on cutting sugar stick. A man sits lazily on a wagon of  pure sugar cane stick root, watching the men work. The scene moves to a gathering of shacks. The slaves are eating. Solomon Northup sees the dull juice of blackberries and it gives him an idea to make ink and a plume. Lamentably, the plan comes up short. The juice is too thin. Afterward, in the swarmed slave […]

The Greatness of 12 Years a Slave Movie

In 1853 Solomon Northup, an African-American born a free man, wrote his biography about how at the age of 33 he got kidnapped and separated from his wife and 3 children by two men he met who offered him lucrative work with a circus. Believing both men's words Northup followed them to Washington D.C. where after various stops to multiple saloons throughout the night Northup remembers getting ill with a severe headache and nausea. Shortly after leaving his room and […]

Solomon Northup in Twelve Years a Slave

Whites have for years have argued that slavery was great for African Americans to be slaves because it civilized them, and they would be content within bondage. This was not the case, at least according to those who were held in bondage. The accounts of slavery are importantly known because of those who were emancipated or runaway slaves. In the novel, Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup composed a narrative about his life as a free man, and about his […]

Depiction of Slavery in Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave follows the narrative of Solomon Northup and his twelve-year experience being a free man then kidnapped to be turned into a slave. He expresses a different outlook into slavery since he had never lived it himself. Being brand new into slavery he is shocked at the horrible mistreatment that slaves endured. His father being a slave that was freed allowed Northup to have a family of his own. He was a free man robbed from his […]

12 Years of Slave: Significant Issues of the Film

The film 12 Years of Slaves is based on the autobiographical story of Solomon Northup. The film, annals the strenuous experiences of slavery and the dehumanizing effects of human oppression. This film portrayals the years of slavery withstood by Solomon Northup, an African American man who is a free citizen in New York. Inebriated from drinking, two men erroneously offers him work, he awakens in chains, before being quickly transported to the South to an existence of indentured servitude. The […]

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12 Years a Slave Movie Review

12 Years a Slave is a 2013 drama film of British-American origin. It is an adaptation of a memoir by Solomon Northup of 1853. In the summary of this film, there will be used the film name, as opposed to the use of actual people who were involved in the events. In the film story, which started in 1841, Solomon Northup was a black guy who lived with his wife and children. He was an African American violinist, whose life is viewed as simple and peaceful at the beginning of the film. One day, two men approached him and offered a 2-week job that was to take place in Washington DC. When they got there, the two men dragged Northup away and he found himself in chains when he woke up. This is how he was sold into slavery. Then, he was shipped to New Orleans and renamed Platt.

In New Orleans, Northup was mistreated and beaten repeatedly and later sold to a plantation owner known as William Ford. Here, he stays on good terms with Ford due to his abilities. At a certain time, he even engineers a bridge, over which they are able to transport logs effectively. However, he was not at terms with the overseer, Tibeats. After getting into a fight with this overseer, Northup is forced to stand on tiptoes for hours and his master says that to save his life, he has to be sold to Edwin Epps. Edwin Epps was a man who believed that he had the right to abuse his slaves. He even believed that it was biblically sanctioned. He has a young girl for a slave, Pastey, whom he used to rape repeatedly. She even wished to die. When Northup is at the Ebbs’ plantation, they are leased to other plantations where he gains their favor for his personality. With the help of a supervisor, Baas, Northup is able to gain freedom after 12 years of slavery (Northup 23-88).

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Sociological Analysis of the Film

There are many perspectives, from which this film can be viewed. These are perspectives that can be related to sociology. Therefore, the review and analysis of the same will be done systematically. This is to allow for the coverage of most of the views and perspectives. The violation of human rights is one of the most discussed issues in the society. This is because people around the world have a tendency to overlook the fact that people have rights, especially when they are at privileged positions. In the film, the consequences that come with the violation of human rights are seen with regards to the people, whose rights are violated. This essay deals with racial and ethical discrimination. This is an issue that is existent even today. However, there are some actions that are against the whole human race. These are called actions against humanity. The mistreatments that were performed to these slaves were extremely painful. This went to a point that one of the young girls wished for her death. This was when she discovered that her life was beyond death. This is the reason as to why the essay has been decided to begin with human rights.

Nelson Mandela once said that people are bound by their human compassion. For people to live together, there have to rule that govern their actions. These are the rules that come with the power figures that are existent at times. However, these powers may not be there. It does not mean that the same people cannot coexist. People live through an unsaid code that ensures that they coexist. One cannot live with people who do not respect the humanity. Even if someone is a slave, there is some torture, which they should not be subjected to. This is just by the simple rule that they are humans. During the slavery period, this was a common occurrence; the masters treated their slaves like people who did not have emotions. This was seen from the brutality that they showed towards them. This means that they were responsible for the money and returns that their masters were receiving. However, the masters were never thankful. As a matter of fact, the food that they gave to them was just to keep them alive for the next day. This was so that they could not lose workers (Northup 20-67).

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At a certain time, Pastey went out to look for soap at the neighbors’ place. This was because she did not like the odor that was emanating from her clothes. She had been working for a long time without taking a bath. When she came back, Ebb did not believe her. According to him, she was trying to escape from the farm. This caused him to be completely angry. His wife also stepped in and threw the same accusation on Pastey. After this, Ebb ordered that Pastey was to be tied onto a post. Before being tied to the post, she was stripped of all her clothes. In a shameful request, Ebb asked Northup to whip her. However, Northup could not agree to this. This is because she was a slave like him. He knew what it felt to be a slave and did not want to add to the suffering of Pastey. Northup was also a man with compassion. He knew that he was dealing with humans and saw no need to cause harm to his fellow mates. However, this was different with Ebbs. After noticing that Northup was reluctant, he took the whip away from him and thrashed the poor girl on her backside. This inflicted a lot of pain on her as she screamed for help. This shows that he felt nothing towards black people. He saw them as creatures that were just meant to do work. He believed that God did not create people equally.

According to the macrostructural perspective of the society, there are analyses of how the society fits together. This is regardless of the races of people. If there were any differences in human interaction that should be brought about by race, the same would have been mentioned in sociology. Therefore, it is correct to conclude that people are created equal and no race should be the preference of the other. Even though Ebb disliked black people, he was able to bring out this fact in the film. As Pastey was working in the fields, Ebb noticed that she was beautiful. Despite her color, he began to develop a liking for her. When he was raping her, it was not due to the fact that he had the need to mistreat a black girl. It was because he hated himself for loving her. He believed that he was falling in love with the wrong person. According to him, blacks could not be compared with white people. This is because they were not created equal. The same person went on to prove that he had been wrong all along. The effects that have been observed in failing to accept the fact that all men are equal is seen in his frustrations. He ends up being unfaithful to his wife. He also unleashed all his anger on the girl that he loved. This was something that he always felt guilty about (Northup 34-77).

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The disrespect for other races is something that cannot augur well with the stay of anyone in the society. This is because the society will always be full of different races. There are no restrictions as to the number of races that can be existent in any part of the world. In the film, the disrespect for the race can be clearly seen. In the present world, the sale of items is an everyday activity. This means that people always sell commodities at different prices, depending on the value that they place in the same. However, the film shows the sale of people. Northup was sold by people he trusted to take him to a place he could work. After being dragged, Northup discovered that his freedom had been taken away. This meant that he was even sold at a price. The fact that someone could have a price, at which he could be sold, is extremely against the societal norms. It shows contempt and disrespect for existing ties and associations that exist between different races. This is just a representation of what occurs in the world today. There are people who believe that races are not equal. These are parts in the world that have not yet come to the realization that the age, in which people did not respect certain races, is already gone. It is clear, that as the society develops, racism declines. This means that the most developed societies are those that have reduced cases of racism. It also proves that racism is a hindrance to development. Some time ago, there was the enslavement of Black people in America. However, this is not the case anymore. America has grown to be a developed nation and is admired by the whole world. At the moment, the country has a Black President. This shows the levels to which development cannot go in line with racial perceptions and boundaries.

Apart from the structural view of the society, which accounts for less than 10% of how people view the society, there is the fact that human activities are the main contributor to people’s view of the society. In the world, there are many geographical locations that can be identified. These are locations that can be said to have some characteristics, depending on the conditions existent in the areas. However, there is a way, in which the relationship between people affects how the world sees some areas since different people have different ways of interaction. The study of individual communities is as monotonous as it can get. Sometimes, it has no major impact on the sociological world. This is because sociology is about the interaction of people from different societies. Therefore, racial differences are one aspect of the analyses that have to be conducted in the attempt to come up with conclusions, regarding human interactions. In the film, Northup is first seen to be peaceful. He was in the part of the United States, where he even had a wife and children. He was just a normal man who was looking to earn a living for his family.

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According to the film, Northup is just a representation of other black Americans. The ability that he showed in all the things that he did shows that black men also have their potential. They have the ability to achieve a lot. In America, there are Chinese, Asians, whites, Latinos, Blacks and any other races that exist in the world. Depending on the places of their origin, all these races categorize people with different abilities. With these abilities, they can all come up with a better nation to be admired by other nations in the world. Therefore, there is no need to dislike or disrespect any single race. At the end of this film, a message of hope is communicated by the author. First, there is a successful relationship between a black person and a white one. This is the relationship that buys the freedom of Northup. The freedom that Northup acquires represents the freedom that should be acquired by every race. This freedom should be viewed from all aspects, including movement and association. Anybody should be free in their country, as well as in other nations. This way, there can be a productive association between races to bring about development. The opposite of this is the birth of hatred and the consequent wastage of national building time (Jacobs and Brent 22-90).

The essay above is the analysis of the film, 12 Years a Slave . However, the major objective that has been achieved in the essay is a sociological analysis of the film. The essay has attempted to analyze the film 12 Years a Slave with regards to racial inequality in the US. Although it has covered a time age that has already passed, the current paper has tried to compare the same with issues that are still existent. It is due to the fact that such issues never end. Instead, they evolve into new ways and forms that are only recognizable by a keen eye. However, the essay proved that despite the existence of racial inequality in the US, it decreased by a considerable margin. As stated above, it is an ideal sign of the development process.

Works Cited:

• Jacobs, Harriet, and Linda Brent. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Rockville: ARC Manor, 2008. Print.
• Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana . Vancouver: Engage Books, 2013. Print.
• Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave . Ed. Sue L. Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.
• Northup, Solomon. 12 Years a Slave: A True Story of Betrayal, Kidnap and Slavery. London: Hesperus Press, 2013. Print.

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