Monograph Mixtape: Musical Analysis of Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave
Overview
This paper analyzes Solomon Northup's memoir 'Twelve Years a Slave' through the lens of contemporary music selections. The author pairs four songs with key scenes from the narrative to explore themes of enslavement, suffering, freedom, and resistance, demonstrating how music can illuminate and contextualize historical experiences of slavery.
What this coursework covers
- Monograph section: Overview of Northup's narrative, his kidnapping in 1841, enslavement in Louisiana, and eventual liberation
- Mixtape analysis: 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' paired with Northup's Christmas experience on the plantation
- Continued mixtape analysis: 'This Land is Your Land' paired with governmental failure regarding slavery; 'Nobody Knows about the Trouble I have seen' paired with Burch's violent flogging; 'Redemption Song' paired with scenes of resistance
Preview
MONOGRAPH MIXTAPE
Name
Course
Date
Monograph
Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup. Vol. 1. Library of Alexandria, 2020.
The book is a memoir about kidnapping and enslavement. Northup narrates his experiences as a slave. Northup was born a free man in Minerva, New York, in 1808. In 1841, Solomon received a generous offer from two unknown men persuading him to join them as a member of a traveling musical show. Northup accepted the offer, and soon after, the strangers sold him into slavery. He narrates the sufferings he went through as a slave in Louisiana before he was finally freed and reuniting with his family following the kidnapping case trial filed against his defrauders. The book is a valuable source of information concerning the daily lives of slaves. Most importantly, the book is set in a historical context as it describes the vice of slavery, which was an immoral act that prevailed in ancient times, and the miseries faced by the victims of the ordeal.
Mixtape
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Frank Sinatra
The song describes the happiness that many people often feel during the Christmas season by having some days off their demanding daily work schedules. The scene in the book where this song would be used is the one in which Northup describes Christmas. As a slave, Northup narrates how they could be taken on every Christmas holiday to work on Epps farm, a sugar cane plantation.