12 Years Of Slavery

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12 Years of Slave is about a free black man who was enslaved after leaving his home to play the fiddle in a circus, even though he was told he would only be gone for a couple weeks. He is thrusted into the violent and tragic institution of slavery, leaving his wife and two children back at home living his once, luxurious life, he lived as a free man. He is given the name "Platt," although his real name is Solomon, and is sold to many different slave owners, most of which are cruel and inflict many different forms of torture and abuse. He becomes friends and even protective over a slave woman, named Patsy, whose children were taken away and sold to another slave. She is ultimately the object of many of her owners' sexual attention, including …show more content…
There was even one time when Platt took the whip from one of his ignorant and cruel owners and starting whipping him with it instead. This almost led to his death by hanging, and he was only saved last minute by another one of his kinder, more empathetic owners, whom then gave Platt to a different owner in order to avoid his murder. 12 years later, Solomon meets a white man who is working paid labor for his owner and confides in him about his true identity. This man agrees to notify Solomen's people up North of his situation, which ultimately leads to his release, much to his owner’s disliking. This was the second time Solomen attempted to use a white man’s assistance to contact his family, when after the first time, a different white man then took all of his money and told the master of his plan, which Platt ultimately denied. When Solomen finally reunited with his family, his daughter is already married with a child, and the reality of being free after so many treacherous years, leaves him in tears and with little words to say, other than apologizing for his …show more content…
However, unlike Harriet Jacobs who was constantly mindful of this reality, Solomen instead was too trusting of white men that only perceived him as a piece of property that must be reclaimed. Also, like Harriet, Patsy, another main character in this film, is also the unfortunate attention of their male owner, but unlike Harriet, is raped by him, also. While we just finished up discussing slave revolts, this film shows that this was very dangerous and potentially a death sentence, as those who did disobey or challenged their masters, such as Platt or Patsy, are mercilessly punished. Also, like in Harriet Jacobs' life, there were only few white people that Platt could trust, however, he never forgot that he was still a slave and they still were his master, thus, holding different levels of power. Platt, like many of the cases of slaves we have learned about, was mostly compliant, simply because as he stated, he was merely trying to "survive," and did not see crying over their situation, as Patsy often did, as productive. Many of the slaves in these situations did not try to run off or change their situation, not only because this could be extremely dangerous, but also because they did not where to go, and knew the potential of being placed back into slavery, was very high.
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