Was Solomon Northup A Hero Or A Victim

Is Solomon Northup a victim or a hero? One particular aspect of this book is how the institution of slavery denies any kind of humanity to those who are thrown into it. Northup shows this in his life of both White culture and in the culture of Africans held as slaves. It is for this reason, I believe Northup is a victim.

Solomon’s father was a freed slave resulting in him being born into freedom. He had the natural born right to live the life of a free African-American man in Saratoga but was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. He was a free man who played the violin and had an education as far as reading and writing as well as a wife and three children: Elizabeth, Margaret and Alonzo, who were 10, 8 and 5 at the time of his kidnapping.

Well, two con men offered him a job playing the fiddle in a circus, so, naturally, he traveled with them to Washington, D.C., where he thought he would begin this new career. The three of them began to drink and Northup began to feel horribly sick. On his way to see a doctor, he passed out and when he awoke, Solomon found he was alone and chained in the darkness. It was then that he had realized he had been kidnapped, and would subsequently be sold as a slave into the Red River region of Louisiana. Northup and two others try to plan an escape from the ship. They got very close to executing their plan, but then one of Northup’s co-conspirators gets smallpox and dies. Also, Solomon’s sale into slavery was set back for a few days when he contracted smallpox as well, due to the lack of immunity to the poor conditions he had been in. The illness nearly kills

For ten years, Northup lives under the tyranny of Mr. Epps. He is a very cruel master. A whip is constantly in his hand, and he uses it almost daily on his slaves. Solomon describes his life under Epps in detailed stories of abuse, humiliation, and deprivation among not only him, but all the slaves. He also mentions Patsey, a slave girl who gets the worst of Epps’ treatment. Solomon tells us that she is repeatedly raped by Epps. She is also whipped by him because his wife demands him to beat her out of jealousy for their sexual relations. One day, Patsey visits a friend to get a bar of soap because Epps’ wife won’t allow her to have any. When Patsey comes back, Epps is furious, because he thinks she had sex while she was gone. So then Platt is forced to whip Patsey as she screams for