12 Years A Slave - 1 Reflection

I particularly loved this movie, and I think if you have the chance to see it - you should. 12 Years A Slave was a phenomenal depiction of the horrors of slavery. It follows a free black man named Solomon Northup, who was forced and manipulated into slavery. I remember growing up and learning about the terrors of slavery, and I have to say that watching this movie was one of the greatest way to help teach people about what slavery was really like. After seeing previews for this movie on television during the Oscars, I decided that I needed to watch it, and see what all the talk was about. I was almost hesitant to watch this movie at first, because I didn’t know how uncomfortable I would feel by the end of it. I also didn’t know how much gore there would be depicted throughout, because generally I don’t do well with that kind of stuff. I never did get around to seeing it until yesterday when we watched as a class. What I thought was extremely interesting was that we are just about wrapping up reading a few slave narratives for one of the courses this semester. I thought it was interesting because I am able to now compare these slave narratives that I’ve read with 12 Years A Slave. The movie as a whole impressed me greatly, and some moments stood out to me more than others. The scenes when an overseer or a master would beat or whip a slave particularly gave me a sense of discomfort. Perhaps it was because the images were so graphic, and though there wasn’t much gore, you could still feel the pain that the slaves felt. The moment when Solomon was forced to beat Patsy was one of the scenes that caused me discomfort. Just to see the look of pain on her face was disheartening, and it was noticeable that Solomon did not want to be the one beating her, because he and Patsy are close friends. It interested me that Patsy was the one who wanted Solomon to whip her rather than Epps. This movie, as a whole, was spectacular. I absolutely loved every moment of it, and I’m glad that I was able to incorporate things that we discussed in class with this movie, too.