12 Years A Slave Litcharts

Racism and Slavery

12 Years a Slave grapples with the racism that fuels slavery and Solomon Northup'due south suffering. The narrative illustrates how racism is an instrument for human wickedness—a justification for a slave owner to be unrelenting, brutal, and inhumane. 12 Years a Slave clearly points out that racism is a learned behavior, not an inherent understanding that people are born with. The overarching purpose of 12 Years a Slave is to reveal the heartbreaking realities of…

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Truth and Justice

Although 12 Years a Slave commends telling the truth, considering it a sign of integrity and strength, the book also explores the complexity involved in telling the truth in nineteenth-century America. Racism means that truth coming from a slave is deemed worthless, limiting a slave's ability to seek justice. Farther, telling the truth can be unsafe or mortiferous for an innocent person in this toxic surroundings. In this instance, Solomon Northup maintains, it is appropriate…

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Family unit

12 Years a Slave centers on the twelve years of desperation that author and protagonist Solomon Northup spent as a slave in Louisiana, completely cut off from his family. Although Solomon'south family appears very little throughout the narrative, family plays a key role in Solomon's experiences. The narrative points out that the concept of family is broader than beingness related by claret or marriage. Instead, family encompasses those who show one another dear, compassion, and…

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Christianity

Throughout 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup asserts that God loves all of his people, regardless of race. The inherent equality amidst men in God's optics ways that Christianity is a source of comfort and strength for the slaves, likewise equally a way to sympathise their circumstances. 12 Years a Slave likewise reveals the hypocritical underbelly of Christianity in the American South, showing the way that Christianity can be terribly manipulated into a…

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The Power of Music

In 12 Years a Slave, author and protagonist Solomon Northup highlights how his violin brought him brief only treasured moments of joy and condolement in the midst of otherwise-horrific situations. He fifty-fifty attributes his concrete survival under his most brutal principal, Edwin Epps, to his violin. All the same, Solomon besides reveals how the scant joy in his life, music, was perverted by slave dealers and owners.

In the opening pages of his narrative, Solomon…

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