User blog:Grundley/PG Proposal: Solomon Northup

this will be a fairly controversial first Pure Good Proposal but I recently discovered Solomon Northup was on this wiki and I feel he is a special case, now first and foremost you have to know Solomon was a real person and many of the events in this film did happen.. *however* this is still a fictionalized portrayal of history, which allows us to add such titles to characters (for example Edwin Epps is under Pure Evil, despite also being based on a real person).

Who is He?
Solomon Northup is the central protagonist of 12 Years A Slave and is an African-American living as a "free man" during the era of slavery in the United States, he is illegally captured and sold into slavery in the South where he must survive and use his intelligence to earn freedom in a near-impossible task, though he ultimately succeeds in this task the years of slavery has robbed him of many things, such as seeing his children grow up and he has also witnessed the cruelty of the world in ways many would not.. yet despite going through extreme pain and torment on a daily basis Solomon remains determined to earn his freedom via outsmarting his captives, using the law to defeat them and while he may of fallen to anger once you have to remember how extreme his situation was, considering how much he went through he was deeply pacifist and while he stated plainly he would co-operate with his slavers (again, to earn freedom and trust) he would not back down against the cruelty of Epps or other racists, this put his life at risk several times but he never allowed his spirit to be broken.

Solomon even bravely confronted Epps over his blasphemy and sadism, stating that God would punish Epps for his sins, Epps may of laughed at Solomon for this but ultimately Epps would suffer a rather fitting end when he lost his entire plantation and died of plague in later life (the ultimate fate of Epps is not in the film however, just thought I'd add this in anyway).

Solomon also acts as the main supporter of Patsey, a tragic young slave girl who is abused by Epps psychopathic wife and also forced into being Epps sex-slave, despite the fact she offers her "master" 500 pounds of cotton every day ("more than any man") she is brutally whipped near-to-death simply for going to a nearby plantation to obtain soap to wash with (having been denied even the right to clean herself by Epps wife).

The Work
12 Years A Slave is a brutal film and depicts the horrors of slavery, while it is based on true events there are some alterations (terrifyingly the acts of Epps are actually *downplayed* in the film, as his abuse of slaves was even more extreme than depicted in this film) : Solomon lived a happy life prior to slavery but as expected the majority of the film is depressing and cruel, Solomon continually defies this setting however and tries to bring peace even in the most hostile of circumstances.. his obedience to his "masters" is by no means a weakness, it is actually shown to be his means of survival and he is also extremely clever and never allows himself to be broken, even Epps (a murderous "slave-breaker" by trade) is impressed with Solomon's intelligence.

Corrupting Factors
the sole time Solomon can be seen as having broken a traditional "pure good" trait of pacifism is when he whipped a deeply xenophobic carpenter who was planning on whipping him severely for no reason whatsoever, this was done purely out of frustration and the "victim" was a horrific monster of a man who attacked Solomon purely because he was a petty, small man who could not stand the idea of an African-American being smarter than himself.. the "victim" also proceeded to try and lynch Solomon after this, so by no means would I say this vile character being beaten up is a major flaw, especially as Solomon quickly stopped said beating and did so mainly out of self-defense.

Another smaller break from "pure good" may of been when he was rather harsh with a slave-woman who was grieving over the loss of her child but this was not done out of malice, he believed the best way to survive was to work and out-think his captives, thus while he was a bit harsh to her he was trying to help (also, remember how stressful (to put it mildly) his situation was.. he was literally sold into slavery.. anyone would have some anger, these two scenes are about as far as Solomon ever went and I'd say that says a lot about his spirit).

Opinion
considering everything he went through and the fact that by the end of the film he can only apologize to his family for his "appearance" (having, as he put it "through an ordeal these last years") and that he bore no grudges towards any race despite the way society treated him says a lot.. the only enemies Solomon ever had in the film were brutal racist thugs and madmen, even these vile characters were only enemies because they made an effort to be so.. Solomon never wished harm on anyone and simply wished to live a peaceful life with his family and even when faced with some of the worst violence of the time he stayed strong in his belief of using brain over brawn to defeat evil and earn his freedom.