‘12 Years a Slave’ is an eye-opening film that displays incredible themes and ideas throughout it. As the movie follows a man named Solomon, who is captured as a slave, the director, Steve Mcqueen uses an array of camera techniques, dialogue and fascinating characters to make these themes come to life. In two particular scenes, the idea that males feel they have the right to use women however they desire attracts the attention of the audience. This is because the female slaves have to endure not only difficult labour tasks for their masters, but also being used as sexual objects frequently. One of the techniques the director uses in the scene, in which Master Epps is counting up how much cotton each slave has picked, is dialogue.
‘That’s a compliment,’ explained Jem. ‘He spends his time doin‘ things that wouldn’t get done if nobody did ’em”(Lee 117). In other words, Jem is saying that the cartoon of Atticus in the newspaper is a compliment for Atticus because Atticus works assiduously and does not let anything get in his way. The girls waving at Atticus are trying to distract him, yet Atticus’ attention does not waver from the task he is trying to complete, meaning that the girls are failing to distract him. If no one attempted to do the tasks properly, they would not get
He includes scenes which inspire discussion by exposing the true inhumane practices of the institution. The film version of 12 Years a Slave showcases the sounds and sights of American slavery: the grief faced with the loss of freedom and identity, comradery in singing, labor intensive cotton picking, and the shudder-inducing sound of a whip along slaves' backs. McQueen accurately represents the ideology behind slavery which was reinforced by slave-owners' skewed interpretations of Christianity; the bible 'sanctioned' slavery, and it was a slave-owner's 'Christian duty' to preach the scriptures to the less fortunate - a precursor to Rudyard Kipling's idea of the 'White Man's Burden'. Although McQueen's cinematic replication of Northup's narrative 12 Years a Slave depicts the harshness of slavery, it forgets to include the gratitude which Northup expresses throughout his narrative. It also shies away from important plot points which emphasize the struggle and paranoia Northup dealt with as his life passed him by and freedom seemed to slip from his
PERSONAL MOVIE REVIEW While analyzing the movie “12 Years a Slave,” one major scene of plot that stood out to me. When Solomon was on the ship to bound for New Orleans, he and the other two slaves were planning about their options. One of the two men said that our hope is lost and if and if Solomon wanted to survive he should 'nd tell any one that he could read and write.Then Solomon’s responded that “I don’t want to survive, I want to
Eleanor and Park also often reverse what might be considered to be traditional gender roles. Park frequently tells Eleanor that he loves her, but Eleanor doesn’t say it back to him. Eleanor is physically larger than Park, but Park is more emotionally sophisticated than Eleanor. Eleanor dresses in men’s clothing frequently, which is partly out of convenience, since she gets her clothes form Goodwill and doesn’t have many options. However, she also chooses to wear men’s clothes, dressing up in a shirt and tie for her phone date with Park because this outfit makes her feel powerful and confident in herself.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl opens with an introduction in which the writer, Harriet Jacobs, expresses her purposes behind composing her life account. Like all other slaves, her life story was story was horrific and shocking enough that she would have rather kept it private, however she felt that making it open may help the abolitionist development and will probably make others aware that what all of them went through. An introduction by abolitionist Lydia Maria Child puts forth a comparative defense for the book and she thus keeps the story of Jacobs’ in front of the world. In the book, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, the author as by the pen name of Linda Brent tells her story of twenty years spent in slavery with her master Dr. Flint, and her
Every action taken to abuse Patsy in the film is a reflection of not only a violent redirection of the powerlessness her mistress experiences as a legally-unrepresented white woman in the South , but another instance in which her power is taken away to fulfill the desire for control that Mrs. Shaw cannot act upon by herself. When the slaves are called to dance in the Epps’s home, for example, Patsy is struck with a thick glass bottle by Mrs. Epps in a failed attempt to get her husband to sell her. In doing this, Mrs. Epps has doubly denied Patsy an identity as a woman, and instead used her as a tool into which the mistress can channel her bitterness, jealousy, and desire to control as much of her own miserable existence as she
Esch is surrounded by male characters, including her father, brothers, and friends, who do not believe in the power of womanhood that is exemplified in Greek mythology. Their attitudes contribute to the male-controlled environment that she experiences. For example, Manny, the father of Esch’s child, states that there is a “[p]rice of being female” (96). This
As it was often believed that they were the inferior sex. Queen Elizabeth combats the notion. Saying that she was just as strong and capable as any man. Well, actually, not just any man. She is comparable in strength to even English kings before her.
This quote is awful because how degrading bondage would turn anyone into a weak person, even in a physical sense. Also, this quote exposes the writer’s personal struggles under slavery and as a central theme throughout her narrative. In Jacobs’ narration, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl carries the reader through a chain of events of one woman’s birth into bondage, her sufferings under that corrupted system, and the manner in which she is eventually able to free herself and all her family members from slavery and make a new life in the North. Linda wants to liberate herself spiritually and