12 Years a Slave

Description: This movie is a cinematic representation of the best selling slave narrative of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in upstate New York who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. The film shows the life of a slave in the American South primarily on two plantations: one governed by a relatively benevolent master and the other subject to a brutal tyrant. They also expose the particularly hard lot of slave women and the operation of the slave trade. The movie is an excellent resource for 12th grade and college classes in U.S. History and for ELA units on the slave narrative genre.

Background: The book, Twelve Years a Slave, is a traditional American slave narrative told by Solomon Northup to ghostwriter David Wilson. It is one of the most important of the slave narratives because it was published shortly after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s immensely popular and influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Twelve Years a Slave validated the claims of slave-owner brutality made in the novel. In addition, Twelve Years a Slave was a best-seller in its own right when it was first published in 1853. The historical accuracy of the book has been exhaustively vetted by Professor Sue Eakin of Louisiana State University. The culmination of her efforts are contained in the recently republished Enhanced Edition of the book which contains more than 100 pages of notes and supplemental materials. With a few exceptions, Professor Eakin has found the Northup/Wilson narrative to be accurate.

The film is a work of historical fiction based on the events set out in Mr. Northup’s book. To create an entertaining story arc and to fit the tale into a two-hour film, a number of events described in the book have been eliminated and others have been telescoped together. On a few occasions actions by one person have been attributed to another or scenes have been added to support the story. Except for the prelude, the scenes before the kidnaping, the murder of a slave by a sailor on the Orleans, and the tea scene with Mistress Shaw, the scenes shown in the film were taken from the book or are reasonable approximations of events that could have happened given current-day understanding of the history of the era.

On the whole, the book and the film are reasonably accurate representations of what life was like for a slave in the American South under one of the best masters (Ford) and later under one of the worst (Epps, who was not only sexually predatory but also extremely violent). The terrible way in which slaves were treated by slave traders and the awful plight of some slave women is also shown.

12 Years a Slave Viewing Guide - Link