Genre and Genre Theory: 12 Years a Slave, Essay Example

Genres in movies are described in romance, mystery, drama, tragedy, and other extensive groups like novels, poems, and plays. For example, the film 12 years a slave’s genre may be described as drama and history based on the activities happening in the movie. However, the genre theory is more profound, describing the genre as a response to specific situations that occur repeatedly. To classify a film in a particular genre, the genre theory examines deeper characteristics than those discussed in genres. This essay uses 12 years a slave to describe the genre theory and its conventions. Under the genre theory categories, 12 years a slave is a neo-slavery narrative. Since the genre theory identifies social situations that occur over time, its conventions also evolve depending on time (Plath, 2019). The conventions specified in 12 years a slave common in slave narratives are first-person narrations, vivid and dramatic incidents, and letters of authenticity by white editors.

Twelve years a slave is based on the personal experiences of Solomon Northup, a black man from New York who was deceived, kidnapped, and sold to slavery in Louisiana. Northup was born a free man because his father was a freed slave. He worked and lived in Upstate New York with his wife and children. Northup worked as a laborer and a violinist, meaning he lacked enough money to sustain his family. In 1841, two white men approached him and offered him an excellent job as a fiddle player in a circus. Desperate for money, Northup traveled with the men to Washington. Upon their arrival, they drugged and sold him off as a slave in Red River, Louisiana. For twelve years, he was a slave for many masters, and he lived under the torturous ownership of a Southern planter called Edwin Epps. In 1853, Northup was freed by friends from Upstate New York who came looking for him. Northup returned to New York, and with the help of David Wilson, an editor, he wrote 12 years a slave. In his story, Northup accurately incorporates his experience of the slave experience because it is similar to the verifiable slave occurrences and experiences in the United States pre-civil war era in the South. When describing the places, he was locked up, Northup identifies where the slave pen was hidden, its physical structure, and the accomplices of his slave traders. Northup mentions the wickedness of slave traders in Washington D. C. and the abuses he endured when he was sold in Louisiana. He wrote that a slave is degraded, tormented, and robbed of emotional, spiritual, and physical riches. Northup also attacks the master, claiming that by torturing slaves, he suffers because his religion is deemed hypocritical, and his family’s legacy is robbed of integrity, justice, grace, and love.

The two most commonly exhibited genre conventions are vivid and dramatic incidents and narration in the first person by a slave. The incidents in the film are portrayed as vivid and dramatic to emphasize the brutality that slaves encountered. When Northup is being beaten to submission in a cell by a white kidnapper, his face is hidden in darkness, a dramatic incident indicating that his freedom and identity are obliterated. In another scene, Northup is tied to a tree branch by his neck as his toes crush on the ground as he struggles to stand upright. In the background, children are playing in the field, and others walk around in the background. Such dramatic scenes are typical in neo-slavery narratives, indicating that slavery is deep in the American culture that the victims are numb to it. Torturing slaves and forcing others to watch is another common occurrence in the slavery genre, and Northup was a part of it because, being a singer, he was forced to play music by the slave masters as they tortured the other slaves (Plath, 2019). Thus, all the vivid and dramatic incidents present in the slavery genre indicate the torture and humiliation that slaves undergo at the hands of their masters. Men are beaten up, and women are raped. For example, Patsy, a young lady that Northup meets on the plantation, is raped by Epps severally in the film as his wife insults her.

Similar to many slave narratives, 12 years a slave is narrated in the first person. The film is about the experiences of Solomon Northup, who recounts his experiences from the time he is kidnapped until his return home. The film contains a first-hand account of his horrors in American bondage to emphasize what happens in slavery. For example, after he was abducted, he narrated, “I found myself alone, in utter darkness and chains.” As he explained the beginning of his experiences from a free man to slave, Northup said, “I never knew a slave to escape with his life from Bayou Boeuf,” indicating the despair that befell him when he realized that his papers proving he was a free man from New York had been taken away and that he was now a slave that would be called Platt Hamilton, a runaway from Georgia. When describing the torture that he was experiencing in slavery, he said that his suffering was only comparable to the agony experienced in hell. Thus, slavery narratives are written in the first person to provide the viewer with first-hand information regarding what slavery entails and the troubles that slaves endure.

In slave narratives, many slaves that write their experiences have a white editor or abolitionist white person friends with the narrator. In the epilogue, the titles show that Northup wrote a memoir in 1853, and he narrated it to David Wilson, an American writer, politician, and lawyer that also edited it. For the slave autobiographies to be published, all-black authors had to be endorsed by whites who testified that their stories were authentic and credible. Slave autobiographies in the United States began in 1703, but publishing began during the abolitionist era in 1831 and lasted until the end of the Civil War in 1865 (Horton, 2017). All the published autobiographies from the blacks, such as The History of Mary Prince: A West-Indian Slave and Up from slavery, among others, had a testimonial written by a white editor. This characteristic of slave narratives expands to the theme of racism because white writers at the period did not need an endorsement for their books to be published.

In summary, 12 years a slave is an autobiographical slave narrative that addresses the conventions of vivid and dramatic scenes, first-person narration, and white endorsers in all slave narratives. Northup included vivid and dramatic scenes to show the torture that slaves went through and first-person narration to emphasize his identity as a slave. White endorsement for successful publication is another convention that extends to the theme of racism in the slave narratives.

References

Horton, D. R. (2017). 12 Years a Slave-Master: Gender, Genre, and Race in Post-Neo-Slave Narratives (Doctoral dissertation, Northeastern University). https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:cj82pz081/fulltext.pdf

Plath, L. J. (2019). “The Lynching Had to Be the Best It Could Be Done”: Slavery, Suffering, and Spectacle in Recent American Cinema. In Violence from Slavery to# BlackLivesMatter (pp. 70-86). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429342684-5/lynching-best-could-done-lydia-plath