Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup’s acclaimed novel, Twelve Years a Slave, is the story of the author’s journey through horror as he was abducted from his happy, free life and enslaved unlawfully. In simple terms, it is a diary, directly from the lips of Northup as he describes vividly the atrocities and life he faced, leaving very little room for intentional literary devices such as symbolism. Symbolism is a thing commonly found in fiction, hidden inside the text and meant to be found by close readers, looking to see the potential meanings of the author’s work. Northup may have not intentionally told his story with symbolism in mind, but, his novel and later successful motion picture film are littered with it. Inside Northup’s work, there are countless examples
Northup describes his religious owner as a “a kind, noble, candid, Christian” (57), and the perfect model of a benevolent and just slave owner, later claiming that had “all men [been] such as he, Slavery would be deprived of more than half its bitterness” (57). While it might be true that William Ford had been a kind and compassionate slave owner, the fact remains that he owned humans, employing his kindness and faith to instill a sense of adoration and loyalty in his slaves. One can assume that through his grand position in faith and usage of the Bible, Ford managed to justify to himself the act of owning another human being. Even Northup himself even maintains that the “influences and associations that had always surrounded [Ford] blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of Slavery”
Epps, as mentioned previously, prides himself on his ability to break his slaves, employing the whip both for punishment and for amusement. In the novel, Northup explains Epps’ methods of punishment, revealing that “the number of lashes [is] graduated according to the nature of the case. Twenty-five are deemed a mere brush, inflicted for instance, when a dry leaf or piece of boll is found in the cotton, or when a branch is broken in the field” (117). Northup continues by explaining that fifty is an ordinary number for punishing misbehaviour and that one hundred to five hundred, with the addition of being mauled by dogs, are rewarded to those who quarrel or attempt at escaping the plantation. From that alone, one can comprehend the enjoyment and entertainment Epps derives from his position, though Northup provides the reader with countless more examples. Throughout the latter part of the novel, we learn that Epps inflicts pain for both enjoyment, or out of a drunken stupor, rekindling the idea of the terror the idea of a whip provides for us. If there was one thing a slave feared, it was a lash; on a plantation, not just the master was equipped with one, but his overseers and even other slaves were made to use them. They symbolise both power and pain, and if extended, death. Like the Bible, Epps uses the whip as a tool in both the text and film, the