12 Years A Slave: Comparison Of The Slave Narrative And Film Adaptation

12 Years a Slave, in its original form, is a slave narrative focalized and narrated by Solomon Northup describing his experiences going from a free man, to a slave, and finally his freedom. In this 1853 narrative, readers are presented intimate recollections of events Northup encountered and the text’s personal nature appeals to the pathos of the reader. Brian McFarlane argues in his novel, Novel to Film: And Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation, that the art of adapting literary works to film is a creative undertaking and “the task requires a kind of selective interpretation along with the ability to recreate and sustain an established mood”. It has been affirmed by many critics that Steve McQueen’s 2013 film adaption of 12 Years a Slave, given the same name, accurately portrays the harshness of slavery experienced by African Americans established in the slave narrative. Within Northup’s torturous journey through slavery, readers are exposed to other slaves and their experiences. These male and female relationships Northup develops are crucial to his slave narrative as they impact his experience as a slave. 

James M. Welsh and Peter Lev discuss in their novel, The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation that when viewers watch “the film version of a novel […] they want to find in the film what they valued in the literary work” and McQueen successfully incorporates valuable characters and relationships found in the slave narrative. However, although McQueen’s adaption of 12 Years a Slave attempts to recreate the female slave experience through their relationship with Northup, the film falls short, focusing mainly on their sexuality and reinforcing ideas of female slaves as concubines, rather than their complexity found in Northup’s slave narrative. In various religious traditions and ancient cultures, concubines served two main purposes including a man’s boundless opportunity to engage in sexual acts as well as increase his social standing through the capacity to procreate children (Gillan 2019). However, in regard to female slaves and their positioning as concubines, they are regarded as meek, weak, subordinate and low status objects that are overtly sexualized and used for sex by their oppressors. 

Northup and McQueen both illustrate in their versions of 12 Years a Slave this characterization of female slaves as concubines however, Northup goes beyond this archetype and exposes complexities found in being a female slave. These complexities include their hardworking abilities and their roles as mothers as well as the duties and hardships associated with this during slavery. McQueen does touch on these themes through the characterization of Patsey and Eliza however, their sex and sexualization is the main focus. Possible explanations for this could be the Hollywood concept that “sex sells” and to focus on female slaves’ sexualization through multiple characters displays how great an issue of being sexualized was for concubines. It also results in viewers reflecting on the time in which the slave narrative was written and makes them come to conclusions on whether or not the treatment of women, in regard to the sexualization, has really changed today. In the slave narrative, Northup makes several references to the sexual abuse that enslaved women endured during his time with slavery. Stevenson discusses how his autobiographical account, “undoubtedly contributed to a tradition of narration that made it possible for a prudish northern audience to accept the details of rampant sexual abuse and forced concubinage more explicitly”. 

Northup’s narrative exposes more complexity to these women’s experiences in addition to abuse, no matter how much it dominated their existence. There is a greater emphasis on the stellar laboring capacity of female slaves, their joy in spite of abuse and suffering, and finally their acts of resistance. Northup describes females’ domestic duties in the house, including yard work, barn chores and laundry. It is adamant that he was impressed by the performance of labor exhibited by the female slaves and showcased their way of living as authentically as he could. McQueen does showcase this but on a surface level. Female slaves can be seen in home and older females picking cotton, however in the film viewers do not gain insight on these female experiences. Instead, the primary focus is on the female slaves who embody concubine characteristics and are overly sexualized. Northup includes happy memories of the enslaved women in his slave narrative. This including, their Christmas celebrations, dances, love for music, marriage celebrations, and the friendship found in their slave community. 

Northup’s scenes of black female agency, manifestations of humanity, and self-expression were outside the thematic capacity of McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave. In both the slave narrative and film adaptation, once Northup is enslaved his first encounter with a female slave is Eliza and her two children. Eliza’s characterization includes a concubine who was having sexual encounters with her slave master (which resulted in the creation of her daughter), but she epitomized a type of loss many female slave mothers and their children experienced when being sold into slavery. In the slave narrative, Northup describes Eliza’s transition originally from a domestic to field worker due to her mistress not tolerating her sadness. Northup grieves for her as her additional work and broken heart led to an early death. In the film adaptation, Eliza is a symbol of “the devastation that the institution wrought on African American social life and identity” (Stevenson 111). Her identity contrasts Northup, the free man who was wrongfully enslaved and unlike Northup, she is defeated by slavery. Eliza believed her sexual relations with her slave owner would have given her and her children protection however, his death and daughter sold Eliza and her family into slavery. Viewers do no learn what happens to Eliza, as exemplified in the narrative. In conclusion, the narrative, through Northup’s account, displays a complex characterization of Eliza and female slave experience in comparison to McQueen’s surface level concubine representation. McQueen’s star concubine and arguably the main leading female slave is Patsey. 

The film plays close attention to Patsey and her slave experience. Northup and McQueen both expose the hardships Patsey faced as a female slave including discrimination from her master’s mistress, being raped, and no recognition for her hard work picking cotton. However, McQueen pays the most attention to Patsey and his portrayal of her is not entirely appropriate. In Black Entertainment Television’s interview “The Reel Story: 12 Years a Slave”, McQueen comments on how he viewed Edwin Epps’ barbaric treatment of Patsey in Northup’s narrative to be driven from his hatred of the “love” he has for her. This is a conflicting concept as Patsey was not responsible for Epps’ brutality and if Epps truly loved Patsey he would not have sentenced her whippings. McQueen also pays attention to Patsey’s sexualization and how Epps often used her for sex. Northup goes beyond this in his narrative and discusses Patsey’s familial background, cultural difference (her family originating from Guinea), and the strength she has from both. Northup explains in his slave narrative that “Patsey had no comfort of her life”. He describes how Patsey was a “joyous creature” however she was “excoriated” not only sexually as displayed in the film, but constantly physically harassed by her mistress. In the film, Epps viewed Patsey as property, wanted to own her body unconditionally, had her working harder than everyone else, and engage in his sexual desires at night. Patsey was Epps’ property to do with whatever he wanted. Northup believes in his slave narrative that Patsey’s toughness was a result of her cultural difference from other slaves. McQueen does not expose Patsey’s familial background and her cultural difference to his audience. In the film, Patsey is reduced by McQueen’s portrayal of her fundamentally as an addition to Epps’ abuse, ravenousness and lust and she is ultimately left broken. In Northup’s slave narrative, Patsey survives her master’s ferocious assaults and shares in Northup’s optimism for freedom. 

Another noteworthy concubine found in McQueen’s adaptation and briefly mentioned in Northup’s narrative is Mistress Harriet Shaw. Mistress Shaw is described by Northup as Master Shaw’s “black wife”), and she is arguably one of the most problematic female characters in regard to the narrative and her characterization in the film. McQueen has embellished Northup’s account of Mistress Shaw found in the narrative. For instance, McQueen develops his own story for Shaw when Northup only gave a scarce description stating she “knew Patsey’s troubles, was kind to her […] Her visits were prompted by friendship merely”. Mistress Shaw is seen, in the film, hosting tea parties and describes how she used her sexuality to her benefit and rise above slavery. She reinforces ideas of female slaves as sexual objections and displays how if they submit to this concept, they can actually strive and survive. McQueen attempts to give Mistress Shaw agency but he contradicts what he manages to get right in his characterizations of Eliza and Patsey. 

Comparable to how Patsey and Eliza are not solely victims, Mistress Shaw is not entirely the free woman she appears to be. She is in fact a glamorized version of the Hollywood concubine. Northup goes beyond the sexualization of female slaves, describes their resistance in direct and indirect ways and many of these critical experiences are omitted in McQueen’s film adaptation. Celeste, a slave woman who hid for three months in a swamp to avoid the beatings of her master is one example of a female slave character dismissed from the film, “I am sick and can’t work, and would rather die in the swamp than be whipped to death by the overseer”. Another is Rachel who risked getting beat when she offered water to Northup whilst he was left hanging after his fight with Tibeats. Celeste and Rachel, their resistance and female slave experiences are not found in McQueen’s film. Rachel’s absence does a disservice to McQueen’s representation of the slave community as she was an example of how slaves protected and found solace in each other, as well as she epitomized the supporting roles female slave acted in communal spaces of slavery. Similarly, Celeste’s story of physical abuse and flight from it being omitted denies the viewers another aspect of enslaved women’s lives that contradict the images of victimhood and passive resistance seen through Eliza and Patsey’s characterizations in the film. 

12 Years a Slave, the slave narrative and film adaptation both display the horrific experiences and hardships black African-American slaves experienced. James Naremore states in his novel Film Adaptation, that “theoretical work in ‘narratology,’ the study of narrative […] is not specific to any one medium”, thus lending that Northup’s experience and stories of slavery is not limited to just a slave narrative but can be described in film and other mediums. Northup, through his own journey from a free man to a slave, shares stories of female slaves he had encounter and McQueen attempts to recreate this theme in his film adaptation. However, McQueen falls short as he primarily focuses of these female slaves’ sexuality and the Hollywood concubine trope. McQueen does a disservice to the female slave experience by not exposing their complexities implicitly and explicitly mentioned in Northup’s narrative. A more rounded representation of female slaves including insight ranging in ages, incorporating the stories McQueen omitted and delving deeper into the multiple injustices these women faced would have established an even more accurate portrayal of the female slave experience in McQueen’s film adaptation.