The Known World Literary Elements

Historical novel

The action takes place in Virginia during the 19th century in the period known as the antebellum era.

The action in the historical novel is narrated from the perspective of a third-person omniscient and objective point of view.

The tone and mood in the historical novel is a violent one.

The protagonists are the black characters and the antagonists are the white slave owners.

The major conflict is between the desire of the black slaves to gain freedom and the desire of the white owners to continue to have power over their slaves.

The historical novel reaches its climax when Moses flees from his master and sets in motion a chain of events that culminate in the death of two people.

At the beginning of the historical novel, the narrator mentions the death of a wealthy slave owner. Among the items left behind by the man is also a large number of slaves. These slaves are counted alongside the other houses and items left behind. The way in which the slaves are mentioned here is important because it foreshadows the way in which the slaves are treated more like items than people.

After Henry dies, his widow, Caladonia, seeks comfort in one of their slaves, a man named Moses. From her behaviour towards him, she lets it be understood that she wants more than just help and that she may be interested in getting married to him. This is an understatement which makes Moses abandon his own family and children, hoping he will get to marry the wealthy master.

One of the main allusions in the historical novel is that even among the black people and even among the slaves there is a big difference in social status and the power they hold over the people around them.

One of the main imageries in the historical novel appears towards the middle when Caladonia visits her slaves. Caladonia is black herself but she lives in luxury and comfort. Her slaves on the other hand live in poverty and can barely survive. This imagery is used here to show that life is extremely unfair and how a person is able to put into slavery his or her neighbors just to gain wealth.

One of the main paradoxical ideas is the way in which many former slaves eventually end up being slave owners themselves. These former slaves who become masters treat their slaves in the same way they were treated even though they knew how much a person who was a slave suffered.

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The idea of owning land is used here as a general term to make reference to the idea of wealth and freedom.

We have a personification in the sentence "the land was their mother, nurturing them and offering them wealth".