Why Did The Slave Master Reclaim Their Humanity?

“12 years a slave” is a book about the slavery in the pre-Civil War South. It was written based on a true story that happened to Solomon Northup who is also the author of the book. The story was a violent protestation, but also full of love without any hatred of Black people, who were being slaved for all their life. The Slavery was abolished in North America; however, it still existed in the South America at that time. Solomon Northup, a Black citizen of New York City, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1851. He was rescued at a Louisianan cotton plantation in 1853. After being freed, Solomon Northup wrote the book “12 years a slave” to recount the years of terrible abuses that he had been bearing under the Slavery. Northup’s story was regarded as a source of inspiration in Civil War which contributed in the democracy of United States as today. It was also a piece of art as well as a work of human insight which awaked the human love, conscious fight, dignity protection, and the freedom of man.

Courage: A Life-Changing Virtue According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of inhumane is “without compassion for misery or suffering”. In 12 Years a Slave, readers are brought into a society and culture where being inhumane is part of a daily practice. 12 Years a Slave, written by Solomon Northup, is a narrative about a free black man that was forced into slavery. In a search for work in the winter, two men approached Solomon and offered him a job, promising high pay and easy work.

When you think of slavery and how the experience of being a slave must have been like, you might think of picking cotton, or a cruel overseer who lashed slaves regularly. And while it’s true that many slaves experienced something along these lines, the slave narratives of the library of Congress illustrate that every slave’s story is a little different. The story of Solomon Northup, portrayed in his book 12 Years A Slave, is one much different from other slave narratives, such as the story of Amos Gadsden. The two stories differ in the way the stories are told, the men’s experiences as slaves and in their slaveowners.

The book depicts the harsh realities of the lives of slave women and how many of them were bought for the sole purpose of becoming their master’s sexual objects, beginning at the early ages of 14. African American women and girls were raped and objectified by their masters. It has been documented that, “Masters had sex with their female slaves, impregnated them and then adhered to the wife’s wish to separate her children by selling them to another plantation”

Throughout the narrative, Douglass shows how slavery turned black people into a property and the masters into monsters. The narrative shows how slavery had deprived the slaveholders of humanity. They became heartless, brutal and savages. This book shows how the masters get satisfaction from brutalizing the salves. In more than one incident we find a salve being beaten and dying because his/her master wished so.

Solomon Northup’s abduction and sale into slavery begins his journey into being a slave for a long duration of his life. In the book, 12 Years a Slave, he discusses the plight of the unfortunate circumstances that would lead him to a life of pain and suffering. His story, first shared after he attained freedom, reached many who then looked at the suffering of African Americans at the hands of slavery. While Solomon’s story is truly unique, it still holds validity. The importance and effectiveness of his story telling is an important turning point in American slavery.

Throughout history, humans have enslaved humans. If slavery never existed, neither would temples or civilization or pyramids. Although they have always provided what is needed, owners would still abuse and mistreat their slaves. However, some slaves have written books about their life in slavery and the cruelties they endured. These stories are called slave narratives, pieces of literature that are written by slaves about their own personal lives (Gale 1). The purpose of these narratives is to show the harmful lives of slaves and what they had to endure (“Slave” 1). Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass are two slaves who are famous for their narratives. Both authors wrote about the hardships in and out of slavery and they are both well educated

Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave gave incomparable insight to the horrors forced upon enslaved Africans and African Americans in the pre-Civil-War American south, particularly in Louisiana. In this essay, I will use numerous examples from the novel to describe the conditions and culture in which enslaved peoples lived.

The film 12 Years a Slave, an adaptation of the 1853 autobiography by a slave named Solomon Northup, depicts his everyday life after his rights and freedoms are ripped away. Through the unpleasant slave auction scenes to the sickening slave punishments, 12 Years a Slave is a heartbreaking story that unfortunately conveys the harsh truth on the issues surrounding slavery. Consequently, during the film there are many themes and events that trigger different thoughts and reactions varying between viewers, and importantly a better understanding of Solomon Northup’s story and slavery itself.

The understanding of the life of a slave woman is far beyond the knowledge of you or I, unless you have actually been an enslaved woman. These literary elements depicting the passage from this story are the only

The atrocities of slavery know no bounds. Its devices leave lives ruined families pulled apart and countless people dead. Yet many looked away or accepted it as a necessary part of society, even claiming it was beneficial to all. The only way this logic works is if the slaves are seen as less than human, people who cannot be trusted to take care of themselves. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved the consequences of a lifetime of slavery are examined. Paul D and seethe, two former slaves have experienced the worst slavery has to offer. Under their original master, Mr. Garner the slaves were treated like humans. They were encouraged to think for themselves and make their own decisions. However, upon the death of Mr. Garner all of that changes. Under

Douglass gives detailed anecdotes of his and others experience with the institution of slavery to reveal the hidden horrors. He includes personal accounts he received while under the control of multiple different masters. He analyzes the story of his wife’s cousin’s death to provide a symbol of outrage due to the unfairness of the murderer’s freedom. He states, “The offence for which this girl was thus murdered was this: She had been set that night to mind Mrs. Hicks’s baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried.” This anecdote, among many others, is helpful in persuading the reader to understand the severity of rule slaveholders hold above their slaves. This strategy displays the idea that slaves were seen as property and could be discarded easily.

Slavery is a humongous topic involving both slaves and former slaves. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Story is one such story. Douglass suffered punishments, and watching others get punished, he uses those experiences to make his argument against slavery.Douglass’ tone in the narrative is sarcastic and dark. Frederick Douglass successfully uses vast quantities of rhetorical devices, illuminating the horror and viciousness of slavery, including the need to eliminate it.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave details the progression of a slave to a man, and thus, the formation of his identity. The narrative functions as a persuasive essay, written in the hopes that it would successfully lead to “hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of [his] brethren in bonds” (Douglass 331). As an institution, slavery endeavored to reduce the men, women, and children “in bonds” to a state less than human. The slave identity, according to the institution of slavery, was not to be that of a rational, self forming, equal human being, but rather, a human animal whose purpose is to work and obey the whims of their “master.” For these reasons, Douglass articulates a distinction

12 Years a Slave is a film that is filled with social psychological phenomenas, especially since it is based on such a sensitive topic. Slavery stripped the Africans of their identity, they were humiliated and degraded, paraded around naked to be sold for the “same price as baboons” as Master Epps mentions. The script of the film highlights how the slaves were objectified as they are referred to as “this” or “that” not as a people. It also shows how the name Platt was forced on Solomon Northup, the slave owner did not care to hear his real name, he called him Platt and therefore Platt he shall be.