#第54本英文书《12 years a Slave》

TS TS 2019-05-03 01:29 阅读(4389)

半个月的时间终于读完了这本《12 years a slave》，之后又看了一遍电影。当然不出意外，电影不如书好看。这是一本自传小说，是一个真实的故事。故事发生的时间是1841年 - 1953年的美国，就是黑奴的时代。

Solomon North was born as a free man during slavery times in America history. He has married to a free black woman and had three children. Unfortunately, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The book chronicled his 12 years life as a slave in South Plantation until he was rescued.

From his book, you can tell that probably hundreds of thousands free black women and men have been kidnapped, the papers which can proved them free were stolen, sent to slave pen in South by slave trader, and sold into Southern plantation owners. It was a completed industry train. Depending on their condition, the price were different. For example, Solomon North was sold out with about 1000 dollars in 1841, similar equal to 28000 dollars today. Only rich people can afford them. Slave trader didn’t care the pain of slaves family separation, didn’t care if they were free before (they would whipped you until you kept silence), only money.

This is a really sad, even horrible story. He fell into the slavery, and got out of it. He tried to escape but soon he learned that any saying about his free identity would result in his death. He was lucky in certain way, because so many black men, women and kids were born as a slavery. They were other white people’s properties. They didn’t have their life, and they were treated like animal. Their life were hopeless and most of them die into it. They were brainwashed to accept bondage, punishment, no education, provided with only basic food and clothing, trained nothing in any skills such as swim so they cannot escape through the deep water. Once they were found for escaping, slaves would being hanged to death. Slaves often were rented out, used as prizes in lotteries, or as wagers in card games and horse races.

In plantation, especially during cotton picking season, "a slave never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but with fear and trembling”. “If it falls short in weight - if he has not performed the full task appointed him, he knows that he must suffer. And if he has exceeded it by 10 or 20 pounds, in all probability his master will measure the next day’s task accordingly." Physical abuse happened almost everyday for various reason, “It was rarely that a day passed by without one or more whippings". For some women, they were even raped by their masters. Of course there were good masters, like 《Gone with the Wind》. Some plantation owners, like Edwin Epps, who was a sadistic. His slaves were worked from early morning till night, and whippings were happened everyday. He would waked them up in the middle of night after whole day working and asked them to dance. His wife tortured one of the slave girl because of him.

He became a abolitionist after his release from slavery. From some rumour, he probably had been involved in the Underground Road.

What is Human Right? This is the Country which had been in such shameful period, been in such dark side of humanity. Under the same sky, North and South had different law. Before the Civil War, nearly 4 million black slaves in the American South. By law, slaves were the personal property of their owners in all Southern States except Louisiana. Slave had no constitutional rights: they could not testify in court against a white person; they could not leave the plantation without permission.