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Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave

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Solomon Northup's Twelve Years A Slave
Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years A Slave. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2007.

Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave is a self-written narrative on the difficult and grueling life that he encountered. This story talks about his life from birth, being born a free man, all the way through his years of slavery and then once again being freed. Solomon Northup in no way tries to make one feel a certain way on the subject of his slavery. He only tries to give an exact representation of what he endured along with what and whom he encountered along the way. By doing so he provided readers with an option to decide for themselves the way that they feel on the subject of his life and also slavery in general. He seems to be a very well educated …show more content…
The story begins with Solomon, a New Yorker, being a free man because of the fact that the patriarch of the Northup family had died which then in part made his father, Mistus, a free man. Solomon grew up doing farm work, but also educated himself by reading in his spare time as well as playing his violin, which he loved so dearly. He later married his wife, Anne Hampton, and they had three children. Solomon did many things to supply for his family, but by the time of his kidnapping he was working in a sawmill in Saratoga Springs while also playing his violin on occasion. He was offered what he saw to be a great and financially prosperous deal that consisted of playing for a traveling circus, he decided to agree to the deal to help provide for …show more content…
To be free all your life and enjoy the daily tasks of life to being deprived of them and then enduring the cruel and brutal ways of slavery, a man changes and so does his way of thinking. One would think? Northup however shows how he may have been dwindled down to next to nothing and treated to the equality of an animal, he never loses his faith, beliefs or composure and this is what ultimately helps him retain his status of a freeman once more. Twelve Years A Slave, is undoubtedly a great read with regards to the fact that Northup gave an actual representation of his life of slavery and the lives of the slaves around him and that he grew close
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