The movie “12 Years A Slave” is an emotionally shocking
movie. The main character is an African American man named Solomon who was a
free man in upstate New York during the time of great slavery in the United
States. He somehow gets kidnapped and sold into the slave market and is
stripped of his whole life for many years. Eventually, though, he is able to
show his papers proving he is a free man. To choose one particular important
scene from the movie is rather difficult due to the many emotional jerking scenes,
but I chose his hanging scene to be the most important at about 47 minutes in.
After disrespecting
one of his “masters”, the man tied a rope around Solomon’s neck and begins to
hang him in broad daylight from a tree branch while he curses in anger at him.
As Solomon is gasping, another master arrives on the scene and basically
threatens the hanger to leave. After both men kind of scram away, they left
Solomon hanging there with just the tips of his feet touching the muddy ground,
squirming to keep his neck above the rope length to stay alive. The scene is
quiet besides the gurgling and breathing from Solomon. Also, all you see is
other slaves walking in the sunshine minding their own business, not daring to
risk their lives to
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| Solomon trying to stand as people avoid him. |
save this
man. I think this is important because it shows how real and disturbing slave
America really was. The power white men had over slaves to force them to be so
immune to a life of violence and devoid of hope is heart wrenching. Not to
forget the scene was excruciatingly long, making this terrible feeling dwell
inside you as you watch it.
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