Compare and Contrast The Movie and Book on 12 Years A Slave PDF

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Compare and Contrast The Movie and Book on 12 Years A Slave. This essay compares and contrast the book and movie. ...

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Compare and Contrast the Movie and Book on 12 years a Slave Alexis Banger Professor Harris English 131-33 1 December 2015

Compare and Contrast the Movie and Book on 12 Years a Slave

There are so many differences between the movie and book about the story 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. The book tells so much more than the movie does. Some scenes that took place in the movie didn’t even take place in the book. In other words, the movie tells a whole different story from the book. In both movie and the book are both depictions of Solomon Northup, but they are extremely different in the way they tell his life.

The comparison of both the movie and book is that they both tell a story of Solomon Northup a free man that was kidnapped into slavery by two men. He was enslaved for twelve years and both show how he lived his life through these times. Another comparison is how Patsey's master was sleeping with her and both of her mistress would beat her. Another similarity is how Solomon turns on Tibeats and ends up fighting him. It's not that many comparisons between the movie and book because the book told way more details than the movie, but here are some differences between the two.

One major difference between the book and movie is how the character of Patsey is portrayed. In the book Patsey is more joyous and gutsy with her life. She lives with hope that she will one day be free and there is goodness in the world. As Northup stated she was “a joyous creature, a laughing lighthearted girl”. Throughout the book she begins to become suicidal and despondent from all the frequent abuse, raping, and beatings. Which one of the beatings was done by Platt by the demand of Edwin Epps, which did appear in both the book and movie. But her Master Edwin Epps did all the other beatings, but the movie tells a whole different story of Patsey. In the movie Patsey is shown as a sad, depressed, and a misery girl. She is so despondent

she wants Solomon to end her misery by killing her. In the book her tragedy is way worse because it tells how her master crushes her joyfulness and happy personality to her wanting to kill herself. In the book Patsey beatings are not as vivid and gruesome as it is in the movie. In the movie its way worse because you can hear her cries and the sound of Epps striking her in the back. Also you get to see her gruesome scars from her beatings and hear her cry as someone try to help doctor on her scars. The film tells more of Patsey story than it does of Northup’s while the book tells us about Solomon Northup’s life.

Platt was kidnapped into slavery, but the way he gets kidnapped has two different story lines because the book tells us something different than the movie does. The book says that Northup was offered a small job at the circus by two men in the village of Saratoga Springs, New York who used fake names to talk to Northup. The two men said they were from a circus company from Washington, but told Northup they were going to take a quick trip to New York. In the movie the men’s offer was to go straight to Washington. This was the difference between movie and book, but in the book Northup never tells Anne goodbye. He doesn’t do this because he thinks he will be back in a few days but he ends up not returning home. He was thinking “my absence would be brief” not knowing that he was going into slavery for twelve years. This makes his story so heartbreaking because he never got to say goodbye to his wife and children. In the movie it shows Solomon saying goodbye to his wife and children then the next scene shows him having dinner with the two men Joseph Russell and Alexander Merrill. Then he was eventually locked up in a dark dungeon after they kidnapped him. Finding himself “alone, in utter darkness, and in chains” as he notices his money and free papers were gone. “Commending myself to the

God of oppressed, bowed my head upon my fettered hands, and wept most bitterly” as the book and movie both, tell us.

While Solomon is getting transported to the south he and other slaves planned to revolt against the white men, according to the book. In the movie they all decide to keep their heads down and endure. Another difference between the story and book is how Platt received his violin as a slave on the plantation. The movie shows Platt having to do some work before Ford gave Platt the violin. Platt played at many parties that they had in the house. In the book Northup tells us that he had received the violin from Epps so that he could entertain the Epps family.

In the book Solomon physically fights Tibeats back and Tibeats wants to kill Platt. He can’t kill him because Ford still holds mortgage on him, but he is tied up and left in the sun after fighting Tibeats but he can breathe. In the movie Platt still fights Tibeats, but this time Tibeats gets close to killing Platt until Ford comes and chases Tibeats away by threatening him with a gun. Then he runs to dying Platt who can barely breathe while he is hanging from a tree standing on his toes and Ford cuts him down from the tree. He then takes him in the house so he can protect him from getting killed. Ford ends up selling Platt to Epps so he can protect him from Tibeats trying to kill him, but in the book Ford sells Platt to Tibeats.

Through out the book Solomon talks about how the slaves did have joyous times in their life even though they had a miserable life. In the movie it never shows the slaves being happy at anytime in their lives. They all looked, miserable, depressed, dirty, and looked like they hated life. One scene from the movie shows all the slaves out on the field picking cotton and one slave

just drops down and died. He wasn’t given a name but that never took place in the book. Solomon talks about his wife Anne being racially ambiguous appearance due to being of a mixed race, but the movie shows her as being African American. Another difference is that the movie never talked about his past life including him having a dad, but in the book he goes into details about his past life including his dad. Something interesting to me about the slaves that Solomon talked about was Christmas. Slaves worked day in and day out except for when it got close to Christmas and they got a few days off. A plantation would take turns hosting the slaves’ Christmas Party. They would feast for hours and then dance all night long. This was nowhere to be found in the movie and I didn’t even know they got to celebrate Christmas. The movie left out an important part in Solomon life, his kids. They only showed two kids but in reality and what Solomon told us is that he had three. The movie ended way different from the book. In the book Solomon told us more details to life after. While the movie showed him returning back home to his two kids and going straight to a black screen.

I prefer the book over the movie even though I don’t like reading. The book describes more and tells the story of Solomon better. In the movie it’s hard to watch because you see African American getting treated badly in so many ways and it makes me mad watching it. The white men called them horrible names like “black dogs”. Then they beat them so bad for stupid reasons until they were bleeding or in some cases passed out. It was hard watching them get beat and hearing the whips hit their back while they screamed to the top of their lungs crying. I couldn’t stand watching that I had to put my head down. I rather read about the slaves’ beatings then watch it. Also the movie takes the joy the slaves did have at times away. It seemed like they life was horrible and miserable all day everyday and there wasn’t really a point to living.

In conclusion, the book is better than movie mainly because the movie takes away from the actually story of Solomon. Specifically the happiness the slaves did have at times through their life. Watching the movie makes his story look way worse than it already was.

Compare and Contrast the Movie and Book on 12 years a Slave An Annotated Bibliography Davis, Serena. 12 Years a Slave: why the book is even better. 11 Jan. 2014. Web. Davis’s article is about why the book is better than the movie. She says McQueen biggest lost in the movie is how he shows no capacity for the joy in the slaves’ hearts. She says Solomon records this piece of detail in his memoir. Also she talks about how the slaves got to celebrate Christmas, which was including in the book but not the movie. Rhodes, Steve. How does the Film Version of 12 Years a Slave Differ from the Book? Web. In this article Rhodes goes over all the small and big differences he noticed from the book and movie. Including how many kids Solomon had which were three in the book and then the movie only showing two. He also goes over the abuse of slaves and how it leaves the audience wanting redemption. Robichaux, Mark. What Really Became of Solomon Northup After His ‘12 Years a Slave’? 23 Oct. 2013. Web. In this article Mark talks about what happens after Solomon returns home from being freed from slavery. He says the book is better to him then the movie. He goes over Solomon’s life and after his life and the theories of what happened after the life of Solomon being freed. Schaefer, Sandy. ’12 Years a Slave’: The Movie vs. The True Story. 11 Apr. 2013. Web. Schaefer is more for the movie than the book unlike most critics. His only complaint of the film is that it’s an unflinching look at the atrocities committed by American slave owners. He also talks about how they made the story of Solomon dramatic. Wickman, Forrest. How Accurate Is 12 Years a Slave? 4 Nov. 2013. Web.

This article by Wickman goes over every difference that there is between the movie and book. He gives summaries of every little piece of Solomon story and how they differ from the movie and book. Including his kidnappers Hamilton and Brown, William Ford, Tibeats, and Patsey....