The Importance Of Life According To Northup's Struggle For Freedom

Improved Essays
The blacks love their lives and the white do. Even though many of them had miserable lives, they would like to survive. Just as Northup said, “Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it. At that moment it was dear to me, enslaved and treated as I was” (135). The love for life supported the slaves to live and put up with all the unequal treatment, and this kind of characteristics helped them survive and create their own culture. Some of the whites argued that the blacks did not need freedom, and they was satisfied with what they were now. This was not true according to Northup; he wrote in the book, “They (people) will find that ninety-nine out of every hundred are intelligent enough to understand …show more content…
They were not ignorance about what their situations were, and most of them looked forward for the freedom. When Christmas came, all the slaves enjoyed the three days of free: they sang, danced, and celebrated for the only festival (215). The longing for free and happy lives never fade away. Thus, black people would fight for their right if they determined to do so. The first time Mr. Tibeats wanted to whip Northup despite of the truth that he did nothing wrong, Northup thought, “I was guilty of no wrong whatever, and deserved commendation rather than punishment”, and he“ had made up my (his) mind fully not to be whipped, let the result be life or death” (109). Northup was brave enough to face the inhuman treatment and decided to resist it. The fact that he finally got out of slavery and gain freedom showed that his resist worked out. All the evidences showed that black people were born to be equal with the white people, and sometimes, they might have better characters than the whites. Northup proved his point that the discrimination to the blacks was unreasonable and selfish. The idea of white people were better and they need to enslave the blacks lost the basic stand point due to these …show more content…
As a person who had been enslave for 12 years, Northup described many details about slavery as a system, and how it affected people at that time. Slaves were viewed as property for slave holders in the south, and their lives were miserable just as Northup described. The culture and value of people in south expressed clearly in the book. He listed many examples of his own life to indicate the inhuman idea of slavery. In the meantime, he pointed out that slavery system was what to be blamed. This was a very good idea to say for the people in the south. What he trying to say was that it was not slave holders’ fault to hold slaves; they thought it was right because of the influence of what they learn since childhood. It made people, especially gentleman in south, to think about the slavery again. It was also a book that written for the people in north at that time. Many people in north did not fully understand the slavery system, and Northup provided them with vivid stories that easily made people felt sympathy about the slaves. The public opinions would change towards slavery because of the emotions that people had for slaves. What was more important was that Northup wanted to prove to all the people in the country that black people were not inferior. People would easily see and felt for him, and it proved that there was nothing different inside between the blacks and the whites. When people now

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