Twelve Years a Slave

How does Northup’s free status shape his narrative?

5. Another distinguishing mark of Twelve Years a Slave is the author’s free status. Most of the slave narratives-like that of Frederick Douglass, for example-were written by an author who had been born into slavery. How does Northup’s free status shape his narrative? How might it have influenced the book’s reception?

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Northup begins the story as a free man. His freedom is taken away from him and he has to struggle to get it back. Northup knows that freedom is possible, he had it. This changes the narrative, Northup has a life to return to if he can escape the South.

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