Veronica Aguirre
English 202B
Section 001
February 19, 2015
Assignment #1 To begin I want to applaud everyone involved in the 12 Years a Slave movie, because it was a great movie indeed. I mean how would it not be considering it was nominated for many awards and it had a positive reaction from the public. Although it was a great movie, I think because I read the book before watching the movie I was a bit disappointed in some things they left out. For starters one of the many things I think the movie lacked was the sense of happiness the slaves had a certain moments. For example when they would get three days off for Christmas and they were able to dance and celebrate and even eat well. Although this was only portrayed in one chapter I think it had a tremendous impact on Solomon, it kept him with hope. I think it’s important to show the bad with good. The movie although great, it showed the bad a crude side to slavery. I am not saying this is bad but I would’ve enjoyed it more had a seen a bit more of the slaves and their hearts and joy and their hope. Another very important difference in this movie from the book is Patsey, although in both the book and the movie she is very important. The movie definitely does emphasize on her treatment more. One small detail I did notice, something I can tie in with what is said in the paragraph above, is in the book Patsey is shown with having hope that one day she will be set free for her misery and her master, she sees the goodness in the world. The key word here is, Hope, while in the movie she is shown to give in and not want to live anymore. She even asks Solomon to kill her because she cannot bear to do it herself. Again the movie lost touch with the sense of hope these slaves had, with the heart and willingness to live, in some but not all cases. The movie also did not show the slaves fighting back like they did in the movie, especially Solomon against Tibeats. He is shown to only fight him off once and the director doesn’t emphasize much on it. A major difference that I can also recall was Mistress Epps. Again with the theme of the movie showing the extreme of things and characterizing Mistress Epps as very evil and wicked. Not saying she wasn’t mean and definitely an instigator with some of the beating, especially Patsey. But again the movie lacked to show the lighter sides of Mistress Epps, in fact Northup describes her as being somewhat pleasant in the book. "Mistress Epps was not naturally such an evil woman, after all. She was possessed of the devil, jealousy, it is true, but aside from that, there was much in her character to admire". Both the book and the movie do a great job at portraying that strong jealous rage that Mistress Epps has for Patsey. They don’t even show
