How Is 12 Years A Slave Movie Different From The Book

Steve McQueen’s movie 12 Years a Slave was written in the 1800’s about a black man named Solomon Northup who was a free man from the North who got kidnapped and forced into slavery in the South. They gave him a different name, Plat, acted like he wasn’t even free and sold him into slavery. Being educated and knowing what freedom tastes like he wasn’t ready to let his former situation go and live being a slave. The movie is based on the book Northup wrote after he regained his freedom after being a slave for twelve years, which tells his whole account from being kidnapped to his freedom. Although this movie is packed with fact, and has exact lines from the book, there is some fiction and invented scenes.
Northups journey into slavery is almost exactly the same as in the movie. Northup did make a plan while he was on this ship to take over the boat with another freeman, Arthur, and a
In the movie that plan ended when the Robert stood up for Eliza who was going to be raped by a sailor, and then got stabbed by the sailor. But in the book what ruined their plan was that Robert got smallpox and died. Northup’s first owner was William Ford and he gave Ford a more charitable view then the movie did. “There never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford,” Northup writes. The movie makes Ford look like a hypocrite, like him saying his sermons over the mournful cries of Eliza. In the movie it shows Tibet getting violent with Northup only once, over nails where Northup ends up whipping him and he ends up tied up and hanging for hours before Ford comes to his aid. In the book there is a second fight with them and Northup afraid of what was to happen ran away, but couldn't survive on his own in the swamps and returned where Ford gave him mercy. In the book Epps was even more terrible than the movie seems to show. Not only did he make them dance after all day of work and would whip them if they stopped. He would also come home drunk sometimes