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그가 자유를 되찾기까지, 노예 12년

2014년 골든글로브 및 아카데미 작품상에 빛나는 영화 [노예 12년](브래드 피트 제작, 스티븐 맥퀸 감독)은 국내외 영화 평단과 팬들의 호평과 더불어 영화의 원작이 된 실화소설도 주목받고 있다. 1853년 작 [노예 12년(Twelve Years A Slave)]은 노예 서사 문학의 대표작으로서, 영미 문학에서 오래전부터 큰 의미를 지닌 작품이다. 미국 역사상 가장 어두운 시대에 대한 참혹한 기록을 생생하게 다룬 이 책은 노예해방 전쟁의 도화선이 되었다고 평가된다.

노예자유주에서 자유인으로 태어난 '솔로몬 노섭'은 1841년, 노예상인들에게 불법적으로 납치되어, 노예를 잔인하게 다루기로 악명 높았던 루이지애나 주로 팔려간다. 12년 만에 극적으로 구조된 노섭은 노예 제도를 향한 깊은 분노를 담아 자신의 이야기를 썼다. 이 작품은 노예들의 육체적, 정신적 고통을 생생하게 묘사하는 한편, 노예 제도가 백인 노예주들의 인간성과 도덕성을 어떻게 망가뜨리는지도 극명하게 대비하여 보여준다.

[노예 12년]은 노예 제도를 그린 자전적 작품 중에서도 독특한 시각과 유려한 문장이 돋보인다. 자유인의 삶과 노예의 삶, 모두를 겪었던 저자는 당시 시대상을 여실하게 그려냄으로써 노예 제도가 지닌 야만성을 여과 없이 보여준다. 이번에 출간된 Movie Tie-in 버전은 영화 개봉에 맞추어 표지와 띠지, 구성 등을 새롭게 탈바꿈했다.

Now a major motion picture, the original Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. Twelve Years a Slave (Originally published in 1853 with the sub-title: "Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana") is the written work of Solomon Northup; a man who was born free, but was bound into slavery later in life. Northup's account describes the daily life of slaves in Bayou Beof, their diet, the relationship between the master and slave, the means that slave catchers used to recapture them and the ugly realities that slaves suffered. Northup's slave narrative is comparable to that of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs or William Wells Brown, and there are many similarities. Scholars reference this work today; one example is Jesse Holland, who referred to him in an interview given on January 20, 2009 on Democracy.now. He did so because Northup's extremely detailed description of Washington in 1841 helps the neuromancers understand the location of some slave markets, and is an important part of understanding that African slaves built many of the monuments in Washington, including the Capitol and part of the original Executive Mansion. The book, which was originally published in 1853, tells the story of how two men approached him under the guise of circus promoters who were interested in his violin skills. They offered him a generous but fair amount of money to work for their circus, and then offered to put him up in a hotel in Washington D.C. Upon arriving there he was drugged, bound, and moved to a slave pen in the city owned by a man named James Burch, which was located in the Yellow House, which was one of several sites where African Americans were sold on the National Mall in DC. Another was Robey s Tavern; these slave markets were located between what are now the Department of Education and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, within view of the Capitol, according to researcher Jesse Holland, and Northup's own account[1]. Burch would coerce Northup into making up a new past for himself, one in which he had been born as a slave in Georgia. Burch told Northup that if he were ever to reveal his true past to another person he would be killed. When Northup continually asserts that he is a freeman of New York, Burch violently whips him until the paddle breaks and Rathburn insists on Burch to stop. Northup mentions different kind of owners that Northup had throughout his 12 years as a slave in Louisiana, and how he suffered severely under them: being forced to eat the meager slave diet, live on the dirt floor of a slave cabin, endure numerous beatings, being attacked with an axe, whippings and unimaginable emotional pain from being in such a state. One temporary master he was leased to was named Tibbeats; the man tried to kill him with an axe, but Northup ended up whipping him instead. Finally the book discusses how Northup eventually ended up winning back his freedom. A white carpenter from Canada named Samuel Bass arrived to do some work for Northup s current owner, and after conversing with him, Northup realized that Bass was quite different from the other white men he had met in the south; he said he stood out because he was openly laughed at for opposing the sub-human arguments slavery was based on. It was to Bass that Northup finally confided his story, and ul

노예 12년 (1~22장)

부록 A~C