'12 Years A Slave' Cast Explain Why Edwin Epps Is So Twisted

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Slavery has always been the most shocking phenomena of our world. Slavery seems very unnatural and provokes mixed feelings from the heart of each one of us. Some people are descendants of those who used to be slaves in the past. Some people have been studying and known many things about slavery and some people just simply do not understand the idea of one human being considering ownership to another human being. Slavery, by definition, means that another human treated as a thing or a product and once sold becomes the private property of a slave owner. So, in other words slavery would converts an individual human being into a thing or even a kind of consumer item. This concept and practice has done a lot of harm to millions of people, especially…show more content…
In the scene the slave owner named Edwin Epps would rouse and wake his slaves up in the middle of the night and order them into the main house. Once there, he commands them to dance. Solomon would provide musical accompaniment to the broken, exhausted group. It was very unique because how Epps attitude is changed between day and night. There is also a reason for that. On the web page article titled “12 Years a Slave’ Cast Explain Why That Dancing Scene Is So Twisted” Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Northup speaks about his perspective on the slave owner Epps and says “Epps is somebody who is driven mad by his own brutality, I think it was Nelson Mandela who said that if a man puts his foot on another man’s neck, two people suffer. And Epps is sort of the result of that. He’s a man who’s frying his own brain”. In the movie it shows a flip side of how a slave owner could be more dependent on his or her slaves than slave themselves. Epps is the perfect example of that. He was dependent on his slaves not only economically but also emotionally. He shows his enjoyment in the dancing scene by drinking and clapping hands. When his wife appears and began to threaten him to sell Patsey, he refuses and went on to say “I will not have my mood spoiled, I will not”. Its pretty unique and special how a slave owner would depend on his slaves in order to find…show more content…
It was really convincing that this was not just a movie, but a masterpiece that lets the audience understand more about slavery and its important place in our history. One of my favorite quote from the movie was by the character named Armsby, who originally was an overseer then worked as a slave, he went on and said “I say, no man of conscious can take the lash to another human day in and day out without shredding at his own self. Take him to a place where he either makes excuses within his mind to be unaffected, or he finds some way to trample his guilty sensation.” I really felt astonished by this quote, because it was very deep. It exhibit both master and slave bond together, whenever the master decides to punish the slaves it also had the damage on themselves. The movie demonstrates the important role that the act slavery plays in our history. It makes sure that we learn from our mistakes and makes sure that slavery should never happened again, it reminds us once more everyone should have equal rights regardless of race and

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