12 Years a Slave Review

Solomon and Slave Owner Epps (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender) talking

Summary:

In the review for 12 Years a Slave the writer points out that the story of Solomon is one of intrigue and horror. Furthermore it was the first film to bring down the facade of the previous movies with their slave owners and civility. One of the more interesting things the writer had to say about the movie was how well the movie grips your attention almost immediately; "It’s a desperate path and a story that seizes you almost immediately with a visceral force." The way the movie tells the grueling and horrible path of Solomon isn't one that pushes people away from it with violence or sadness, but rather as the writer said "seizes you almost immediately" and keeps you hooked until the end of the movie.

Original quote: 

Not long after he’s kidnapped, Solomon sits huddled with two other prisoners on a slaver’s boat headed south. One man insists that they should fight their crew. A second disagrees, saying, “Survival’s not about certain death, it’s about keeping your head down.” Seated between them, Solomon shakes his head no. Days earlier he was home. “Now,” he says, “you tell me all is lost?” For him, mere survival cannot be enough. “I want to live.”

Paraphrase:

After Solomon is traded off to a slave merchant he sits himself down with two prisoners with opposing ideas on how to get through their troubles. The first says that they should revolt against their captors for their freedom and face immediate annihilation, the other disagrees with the former statement and says that they should just lay low. Finally Solomon speaks up, remembers his recent past and chooses to "live" rather than just survive the next 12 years.

Slave Narrative

Source Used: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Ann Jacobs

The people sent up on the auction block would beg for kind looking slave owners to buy them, which signifies that they had already given up on trying to escape. Slaves of that time period went through several traumatizing events that would haunt them and the people they were slaves with. The cycle of slaves dying and being hired or put up for sale is like a factory, the same monotonous thing over and over again.

Lincoln Movie Review Paraphrase

Paraphrase practice:

"Some historians have argued that Lincoln’s personal beliefs underwent a significant change during the last year of the Civil War, and Lincoln did in fact suggest to the reconstructed government of Louisiana in 1864 that “very intelligent” black men and “those who have fought gallantly in our ranks” might be given access to the ballot box. As depicted by the film, during the 1864 Presidential campaign Lincoln threw his support behind passage of the 13th Amendment and was active in securing its passage in 1865." (Spielberg's Lincoln: A Historian's Review)

My Paraphrase of this selected passage: 

It has been asserted by many historians, that Lincoln largely changed his innermost thoughts and ideals while undergoing the final year of the Civil War. Proof of this was that he pushed the proposition of giving African American people the right to vote, especially for their bravery, courage and intelligence. In the film while he was running for the presidential election, he highly regarded and reinforced the ratification of the 13th amendment. Not only did he back the 13th amendment but he also was one of the key players that locked in its advancement towards being ratified.

US History Reconstruction Reflection

Refection:
My experience "time traveling" in the 19th century was an informative "adventure" because the southern journalists or writers wrote about reconstruction as if it were they're mortal enemy. They said things like "reconstruction will never be as satisfactory as future results" or that reconstruction was against the people's will. It was similar to what I had thought already of the south at the time, being very against reconstruction and wanting to keep their slaves. Using an archive is way different from using a textbook because with a textbook you get the curated facts of what happened, whereas in an archive you find the raw information of what people said and did.

Link to article

Reconstruction Ends

Why did Reconstruction End in 1877?

Reconstruction ended in 1877 because of Hayes being elected and the democrats being outraged with the fact of that. Hayes was a republican and therefore he advocated black voting rights and equality. That was why the southern democrats were so disgusted with the election.

All information came from the book.