Amistad's Movie Plot example essay topic

The movie Amistad, and the excerpt from "The Life of Olaudah Equiano" both deal with experiences of important historical background. Both pieces take the audience through a period in history where slavery was not only accepted, but it was a prominent part of everyday life. In each story, the slaves were treated in such similar, inhumane ways that it is clear that the message the author is trying to get across is that slavery was wrong back then, it is wrong now, and it always will be wrong. The intended audience is not held down to one specific group of people.

These works were made and written in hopes to educate people of all ages and allow them to understand and see what happened during a crucial point in history in which no one was a part of. It allows people to see how the slaves were captured, how they were treated, and all the horrible actions that had occurred. It is safe to say that for the most part, Steven Spielberg does an excellent job on making sure that Amistad's movie plot stayed as true as possible to portraying the historical story of the trials and tribulations of the captured ship in 1839, La Amistad. However, since the fact that it is a movie, the context of the story was of course affected. Scenes had to be over dramatized and characters, made up or not, could have been seen in different lights. However, in spite of this, Spielberg still produces a strong plot enlightening the viewers with knowledge of this well-known case.

After watching "Amistad", it gives the viewer a sense of disbelief and a feeling of disgust that human beings were treated in such a way. The gruesome and vivid scenes portraying how whites treated the blacks on board the ship is very effective on developing the theme because not only do they know what happened, but also there are now horrific images of the action to go along with that knowledge. It hits twice as hard when you are able to imagine and see it happening in front of you. In Equiano's excerpt from his autobiography, he also does an excellent job effectively getting his message across to the reader.

His describing of his experiences went into great detail, thus making the story appeal to the reader's emotions. He takes the readers through his journey, never allowing you to forget how horrible the conditions on that ship were. He goes on and explains that, he, as well as many others, wished that death would overcome them in order to escape the terrifying nightmare that was reoccurring everyday. It is statements like that that only reassure the reader that if death was a hope and a dream for the blacks, then conditions on the ship must have been far worse than even he could put into words.

Both Equiano and Spielberg try to convey a forever-lasting message in their works that slavery and the treating of any human being, no matter their race, gender, religion or anything for matter in such a savage way is completely unacceptable. No one deserves to be treated in such a way, and after reading or watching works like these people can get a better understanding of that fact and hopefully use that in their life and learn that everyone should be treated with respect and most important, equally.