World of Troubles
In what is likely the best and most important novel about slavery since Toni Morrison's
Beloved, Edward P. Jones confronts a phenomenon that some might find
unthinkable: in the years before the Civil War, many free blacks owned slaves. Beginning
with this strange idea, The Known World -- nominated for the National Book
Award and named a New York Times Editor's Choice pick -- reveals a new side of
slavery that subverts our historical and literary preconceptions and conventions. The
archetypal images of the cruel, complacent white master and the noble slave yearning for
freedom no longer apply: Jones has located new complications in the issue and in doing
so had come closer to truth.
At the novel's center is Henry Townsend, who was born into slavery and whose father
eventually bought his freedom. When he was a teenager, Henry distinguished himself as
a fine leather worker and boot maker, and once he was free, he earned enough money
over the years to start a farm and build himself a house. Under the tutelage of William
Robbins, who once owned him and now has a fatherly affection for the former slave,
Henry adopted the lifestyle of the county's upper-class whites, which, of course, meant
owning slaves. The Known World opens with Henry's death, and Jones proceeds
to show how the event affects every citizen of Manchester County, Virginia.
Henry Townsend is not an anomaly. As Jones points out: "In 1855 in Manchester County,
Virginia, there were 34 free black families... and eight of those free families
owned slaves." This number does not include individual free black slave owners like Fern
Elston, a teacher who can pass as white. Several of her young students -- including Henry
and two of William Robbins' children by a former slave -- aspire to own human property,
and they constitute "a free Negro class that, while not having the power of some whites,
had been brought up to believe that they were rulers waiting in the wings. They were
much better than the majority of white people, and it was only a matter of time before
those white people came to realize that."
Jones leaves it purposefully unclear what the white people will do when they come to
realize that; Fern's students naively believe they will finally live free, but more likely they
will meet the brunt of those whites' insecurities and rationalizations. This is the crux of
the novel: Slavery pollutes everyone who participates in it and warps their concepts of
justice and humanity.
In The Known World, Jones' technique, which attempts to reinvent the novel
form, is just as subversive as the side of slavery he presents. On one level his prose is
direct and plainspoken, with a colloquial, decidedly nonliterary cadence, but it is no less
evocative or powerful for being so modest. On another level, The Known World
is about community and context, and Jones tailors the novel's structure to play up these
themes. He writes from a number of points of view, not just Henry, his wife Caldonia,
and each of their slaves, but also Sheriff John Skiffington, his untrustworthy cousin and
deputy Counsel, and his three rowdy patrollers, among many others. As one character
states, "We are all worthy of one another," and Jones captures this sense of potential
equality through the congregation of voices. Every story is worthy of being told.
Many writers evoke a sense of community to reflect the widespread horrors of slavery,
but Jones takes it one step further: He creates an actual community consisting of slaves
and freemen, slave owners both white and black, and those who are apart from slavery
but still pulled into its vortex. Furthermore, by portraying so many different sides of the
community, Jones provides new contexts in which to view his characters and their
actions. He includes not just the characters' back stories, but also their fates -- their lives,
deaths, legacies. As viewed in these shifting perspectives, everyone in Manchester
County is morally compromised; in a place where there are no heroes or villains, there
are good intentions and noble gestures galore, but little that is noble and pure. The slave
owners, while rarely cruel, struggle for a middle-ground justice, and the slaves trade their
dreams of freedom for everyday comforts like food and companionship.
Jones creates an even larger context by providing fake, albeit historically founded,
statistics and by quoting fictional historians like Marcia H. Shia and Roberta Murphy. At
first the inclusion of these names and numbers makes the novel seem over-researched,
but Jones' intention is more purposeful. Connecting the past intrinsically with the present,
The Known World not only uses the present as context for past -- commenting on
how we view the past through art, academia, and memory -- but also uses the past to
show us where we are today and how we arrived at this point in history.
For slaves and masters alike -- as well as for this author and his readers -- slavery creates
a past full of horror that haunts the present and dooms the future. As The Known
World makes clear, no American is ever free from its consequences.
— 5 January 2004
