American Literature / Unit 18 AML 1738 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Edward P. Jones and *The Known World*
Captions available
The idea
The witness says Jones revives a nineteenth-century form when his narrator takes on a God-like omniscience, but that unlike the nineteenth-century narrators his provides little God-like consolation. The novel asks who counts as a knower and what can be known about the past.
In practice
An omniscient narrator who consoles nobody.
Where people slip
Readers find the chronology deliberately disorienting.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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