Per 2 2014 prose samples
2014 Prose Samples
Beckham
	In the except from The Known World, Edward P. Jones depicts the character of Moses as a slave working on a plantation.  Jones develops Moses’ relationship with the land or with nature as a whole to indicate his relative separation or even isolation from the human community.  Jones’ selection of detail and point of view contribute to this characterization of Moses and his independence.
	Jones’ choice of detail presents Moses as distinctly separate from other people and even emphasizes his independence. The coupling of the assertion that Moses “worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults” with the acknowledgment that it was the very “evening his master died” proves that Moses’ work is self-driven and even independent of the demands of others, even those socially higher than him or in a position of power.  The distinction that his wife and son joined with the rest of the people who retired to their cabins from their work at the field only emphasizes his greater isolation, even from those in a position of typical family intimacy and love.  Even “the mule quivered, wanting home and rest”, which calls attention to the perverse nature of Moses behavior as he seeks the opposite desire of the others.  Jones’ inclusion of Moses’ tendency to eat direct, as well as his different perceptions of the dirt with regard to the changing seasons, serves to emphasize the closer relationship that Moses has with the land in comparison with any other human or creature.  Indeed, Jones reveals that “he ate it...because eating of it tied him to the only thing in this small world that meant almost as much as his own life.”  The aspect of life that is most dear to him is not the companionship of another person or creature; indeed, is own wife “knew enough not to wait for him to come and eat with them.”  Rather Moses holds most dear the land, and it is in nature rather than in companionship that he “lost himself completely.”
Jones’s use of third person omniscient narrator further emphasizes Moses’ separation from companionship and humanity.  Because the narrator is omniscient, he can understand Moses’ wife’s thoughts and behaviors without Moses needed to reflect on her or even acknowledge her in nay way.  Since Moses himself is so isolated and independent, a point of view that would foster his interpersonal communication seems inappropriate.  Jones does employ free indirect discourse with regard to his third person narrator’s presentation of Moses’ thoughts precisely in the way that he would think them, which grants the reader the ability to hear Moses’ voice without hearing his speech which seems limited by his limited human interactions.
	Jones’ particular selection of detail and his use of an omniscient third person narrator combine to characterize Moses as distinctly separate from the community of humanity but content and at peace with his independence and indeed his bond with nature.  Despite Moses’ circumstances as a slave, Jones’ reveals his unique ability to find solace and even freedom in having the life he chooses and his bond with the land.


Riley
Slavery has always had a big impact on the world and this passage reiterates the feelings and attitudes of a slave.  Edward P. Jones portrays Moses through his use of imagery and detail so we as readers can better understand Moses’ point of view.
	Jones opens the passage with details and an image of Moses who “had been in the fields for all of fifteen hours”. Through the image of the sun with only “a five-inch-long memory of red orange laid out in still waves” we can tell Moses is a loyal and hard worker.  Not only is he a hard worker, but we can see he takes pride and joy in what he does for “he was the only man in the realm, slave or free, who ate dirt”.  This image enables us to see his passion for the earth and allows us to see his  world though his point of view.  “He ate it not only to discover…as he own life,” allows the reader to see that he is owned, but he finds joy in the simple things of life such as the dirt and rain.  “Moses smelled the coming of rain,” so that he could “be closer to the earth,” allows us to see that Moses finds passion in good things.
Moses’ character is shown when “he lost himself completely,” in his escape from a hard day of work.  His identity is seen in a new perspective through these images of harsh field days to the transition of the earth, where he can escape and be closer to what he loves.  Moses’ character is loyal, hard working, and down to earth.  He is able to be happy in the simplest of realms.
AnnaMarie
	In his characterization of Moses, Edward P. Jones uses a wealth of vivid, living detail and imagery of nature’s fullness of life to present a man who is more earth than man.  Moses is a laborer works the land daily and thus has a deep and close connection to it.  Jones’s language of relationship and life in association with the land and the nature around Moses reveals Moses as a man whose life, joy, suffering and death all spring from the earth and his response to this wellspring of life is to return his own labors and love to the earth.
	In the opening lines of the passage, Jones portrays Moses as a loyal hard worker who even in the face of death, “worked again well after he ended the day.”  While his humanity and human relationship with others is plagued by “hunger and tiredness,” the earth provides him with sustenance and life.  In fact, Moses even eats the soil: “Moses closed his eyes and bend down and took a pinch of soil and ate it with no more though than if it were a spot of cornbread.”  Here Jones emphasizes Moses’s close relationship with the land, that he eats it not to feed himself but “to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the field” which “meant almost as much as his own life.” But this relationship is not a forced one as one might think about a laborer who works the land.  Jones uses strong human imagery so suggest an equal relationship between man and nature.  Going from the “ancient and brittle harness” of his work, Moses is enveloped by a loving nature: “the evening quiet wrapped itself about him.”  Even when describing Moses tasting the soil, Jones uses the word “relationship” to illustrate more directly the give-and-take sharing o f the earth and Moses.  The explicit detail of this relationship, of its changing nature in the “sweetened metal” taste of summer against the “sour moldiness” of winter seems to reflect a living, almost human relationship between the earth and man.
	The point of view of the narrative also serves to support this idea of an intimate relationship.  The narrator, a third person objective narrator who has some insight into the thoughts and feelings of Moses, provides and intimate portrayal of the tender and caring actions of Moses toward the earth.  This point of view, like an observer, a witness, allows for a close and private view of Moses.  When Moses smells the rain, “he breathed deeply, feeling it surge through him.  Believing he was alone, he smiled.  He knelt down to be closer to the earth and breathed deeply some more.”  This moment of intimacy was meant to be a private one and almost mirrors the loving embrace of a husband and wife.  This description is closely followed by Moses’s thinking of home and family; “his woman and his boy.”  The contrast of Moses’s indifference to his family further highlights that Moses is a man of the land, not of people.  Again, with the final scene of Moses washing in the rain and lying naked upon the wet earth, Moses enters into the earth, becomes a part of it, birthed by it, and cleansed, “covered with dew” at the start of the day.
The vivid imagery and close intimate detail and point of view of this passage reflects the living and almost human relationship between Moses and the earth.  Edward P. Jones gives the passages a shot of live and beauty and so too des he give his character Moses a source of strength and joy in nature.  The imagery of life in nature suggests that Moses draws his strength from the earth and not from the people who came from it and work it.