The movie tells the story of a free black man from the north who was tricked into being a slave in the south. During this period, he met slave owners with different behaviors.
Mr. Ford is a kind-hearted owner. When Eliza begged him to take her daughter, he hoped to help, but his abilities were limited. He appeared weak in front of the colder slave traders. When Solomon made meritorious service, he would treat him like an ordinary person. Ford seemed to be a person who didn't care about the other person's skin color, but the environment forced him not to do too different things. So when Solomon had a conflict with his white supervisor, He had to send Solomon to more powerful slave owners to save Solomon's life. Although Ford is very kind, he is also very timid. Perhaps this is also a common problem of people with a soft and kind heart. He dare not do anything extraordinary, so when Solomon tells him that he is a free man, he is unwilling to listen. He chose to escape, because if he admits, he will suffer more serious inner self-blame, because his nature will tell him to help Solomon regain his status as a free man, but reality tells him he cannot.
Ford’s Dubitz is a typical slave owner. He is Ford’s overseer. He requires unconditional obedience from blacks. He is jealous of Solomon, who is more capable than himself. Perhaps he is against Solomon. The deeper reason is that he is against Solomon. The inferiority in his heart, in his eyes, these black slaves are not human at all, they can only be lower-class animals. They should be driven by themselves like cattle. They kill when they want to kill, and they beat when they want to fight. "But he is smarter than himself and won the love of his employer. This is a powerful challenge to his own ability. His incompetence makes him angry, so he releases all his anger on Solomon and treats him from Chapin. It can also be seen from Diebitz’s attitude that Diebitz is not particularly respected among the white people, so he has to look for superiority from these slaves, and the appearance of Solomon makes him appear to be a man. Fool (maybe he was), the only place he was looking for superiority was "relentlessly" strangled by Solomon, and hatred was born.
Another overseer, Chapin, should be regarded as a person similar to Ford. He does not hate blacks because of his skin color, but his living environment also makes him reluctant to get too close to blacks. He only wants to stand in a neutral position and do his own thing. At work, you will not deliberately bully you because you are black, nor will you stand up for you because white people bully you, and always do what you should do and don’t overstate.
Epps is a slave owner similar to Dibitz, except that Epps has a solid family and does not have Dibitz’s inferiority complex. He is cold and tough, doing things according to his own preferences, when his strong desire for control is blocked. At the time, he was a little hysterical. He seemed to be a man who obtained wealth through inheritance. Just like Salomon’s evaluation, "He is a slutty boy." Although tough, he does not have the kind of experience that has been experienced in the world. When encountering difficulties At that time, he started to lose control.
Xiao, the slave owner in the film, should be regarded as a human being. When everyone around him treats black people as slaves, he dared to treat a black man as his wife. Pats went to Shaw. Although Epps was worried, he But there is no way. On the one hand, Epps may be reluctant to let others know that he likes this Patz because of his reputation; on the other hand, it can be seen that Epps also has certain scruples about Shaw, after all, Patz It was his property, but he was worried about Xiao Ranzhi. It was obvious that he felt that his deterrence was not enough to make Xiao dispel the idea of Ranzhi's own property.
Finally, the judge is the judge. The judge has very few roles. His status has won the respect of other whites. The only performance in the film is that he recommended Solomon to play the violin and allowed Solomon to take his own payment. It is difficult to determine the judge's attitude towards slaves, because for his status, this should be nothing to him. It can only be said that he is not a very demanding slave owner.
As Ford said, "No one except Epps should dare to accept a slave like you", "You are already famous", "You are a very special slave, but it is not good for you." Because of your education, And he used to be a respected free man. On the one hand, Solomon accepted his own destiny without feeling sorry for himself. On the other hand, he constantly sought opportunities to get rid of his own destiny. In the process, he did not completely follow and follow slavery. Lord, he constantly struggled with his unfair destiny. Although he had gone through twelve years, in the end, he was considered a success. Even after being betrayed by Armsby, when he met Buzz, he still had the courage to try again, maybe this is the key to his success-courage and strategy.
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