Slavery In Solomon Northup's 12 Years A Slave

The book 12 Years a Slave, written by Solomon Northup has been widely accepted by scholars as an accurate representation of slavery. The book has proven to be the holy grail for slavery historians, due to the fact that Solomon reported every detail without bias. This book later inspired the director, Steve McQueen, to make the award winning movie, 12 Years a Slave. Steve McQueen is a director dedicated to accuracy, and was quoted on saying, "It was basically telling the truth about a certain time in history" (Raab). Likewise, Solomon Northup was quoted in his memoir stating," This is no fiction, no exaggeration." While both Solomon and McQueen aim to tell the truth of slavery, the differences in the movie, cause the movie to create a biased …show more content…
He also goes on to describe her character,"…was a joyous creature…" (Northup 188). Solomon establishes Patsey as a joyful slave, determined for freedom. In the movie however, this was not how Patsey was portrayed. There is a scene during the movie, in which Patsey asks Solomon to end her life while they were together one night (McQueen, 12 Years a Slave) . This is a complete polar opposite in which Solomon describes Patsey. Once again, the movie is wrong due to the fact of distorting the mindset of the slaves. Clearly her happiness, and desire for freedom is stated in the book, but the movie does not show this mindset. Due to the movie omitting scenes, showing that slaves wanted to escape, shows the movie twists history, and therefore cannot be considered unbiased at this …show more content…
In the book Solomon describes him as a "…man in whose heart the quality of kindness or justice is not found." (Northup 183) This part is accurately depicted in the movie as Epps . However, Solomon mentions about how Epps promotes him to slave driver and also how Epps sent Solomon to the doctor when Solomon was ill to near-death. Solomon speaks about when Epps found that Solomon might die, he was," …unwilling to bear the loss…" (Northup 177). While Epps is primarily concerned with losing profit due to Solomon 's death, it still shows that Epps valued him to an extent. Also, Epps promoted Solomon to the "driver" position on the plantation. The drivers on the plantation were, "chosen for their intelligence and abilities;". This clearly shows that Epps valued Solomon, even though he did not express it. The movie does not allow the viewer to understand that Solomon is valued by Epps, because both the doctor visit, and Solomon were left