In the novel The Known World of Edward P. Jones, we are plunged into an era of slavery. Because of this, we are introduced to many slaves and many slave owners, each with a story that is an important part of the novel as a whole, but I feel like it mainly focuses on the Henry Townsend's overseer, Moses. This is said for three reasons: the novel begins and ends with him, he is continually mentioned throughout the novel even when the reader assumes he is reading about another character, and finally his story ties in well with the title. new book, the first character you meet is usually the protagonist, the main character of a book. The authors do this to make the reader more emotionally attached to this character, as they will follow him throughout his story. The Known World begins with the outline of what Moses does on the night of his master's death, because he is the first character mentioned, this automatically leaves the reader thinking that he will be the main character. In my reasoning, I said that the novel begins and ends with him. The beginning is obvious, but the ending is less obvious because the last story concerns Minerva. I say it ends with Moses because every story begins to end when he leaves the plantation. Most of the ending concerns people searching for his whereabouts. What is interesting about this novel is how the narrator interacts with the story itself. Although the story does not change points of view between characters, it seems to focus on one character at a time. It is difficult to understand because the narrator stays in the third person all the time, sometimes it appears as if the narrator is a character who is watching...... middle of paper ......a particular character because that he ties everything together by being the beginning and end of the story and ties the other stories together as well as having his story presented more than that of the other characters. It is not only for these reasons that the reader can see Moses change. At the beginning of his story, he is almost pitiful and begs not to be separated from the other slave. At the end of his story, he was a violent husband and hardened by the world he knew. The reader can see that the man who once held the plantation together knew exactly how to break it and I think that's what the book is really about; Moses' path to getting there was because he was never able to fully understand what made him property that someone else could buy or sell. Works Cited Jones, Edward P. The Known World. New York: HarperCollins Publisher Inc, 2003. Print.