In The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Jones describes the mental journey of Moses to move on from a safe and loving, but unchanging and regressive, lifestyle in a cabin village. By displaying vivid detail of Moses' affinity to eating dirt as well as imagery describing the surroundings of Moses, all encapsulated in a deep, intimate third person point of view, Jones paints Moses as a characters who has the determination to move on by breaking the status quo.
The author initially uses great detail to describe the tight bond that Moses had with his family and friends in the cabin village. Clear sensory descriptions life "metallic life" and sour moldiness" of the dirt that Moses tastes proves that Moses has lived in the village so comfortably that he can taste the differences even in his hometown's dirt, by season. Jones also describes the eating of dirt as "the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life." Moses tasted dirt not for bodily necessity, but for his mental necessity of once more being connected to his hometown before he has to leave for an entirely different lifestyle. The fact that Moses finds the world as small implicated a determination to move forward, a determination to do better, a determination to find more.
This determination revealed through the first half of he passage blossoms successfully into a clear depiction of Moses' character.
Just in the next paragraph, Jones uses atmospheric and auditory imagery to further Moses' journey to a new life. The author first spits out the words "home and food and rest and what passed in may cabins" to emphasize the great comfort and protection that Moses had while living in his village. Readers already know that Moses is planning to leave. But what makes him want to leave, when his current lifestyle has all the necessities to mold a healthy, sustained person?
This is his determined character, his deep desire to change and do better. The author includes revealing auditory cures that hint at a faint "sound of playing children" at one side of Moses' head, but on the other side, Moses hears "more clearly the last bird of the day." This is the crucial moment that finally turns the story forward, that drives Moses' character from still somewhat meek to full-on impassioned. No longer tempted by the sound of happy village children, by the safety of his home and family, he urges the sound of the bird in the forest to whisk him into a new life. The fourth paragraph clearly shows Moses' transition into and passion for change.
Once the author finally takes Moses and the readers into the forest, everyone gets an intimate closeup of Moses' point of view, all alone, but unafraid nonetheless. Rain flowing down on his face symbolizes both a cleansing of his past life and an acceptance of the new world.
Essay score: 4
Reflection After Draft #1:
My first draft of The Known World's Prose Passage essay has a couple of major issues, which understandably limit the essay's score to a 4. First off, I significantly misunderstand the passage and its relationship to the prompt. I fail to see that Moses was a slave; I instead focus on his determination to escape a life of monotony, which ultimately fails to illustrate what Edward P. Jones is actually describing in the passage. I also fail to finish my final paragraph, which would have included a crucial last piece of evidence and the overall conclusion. The lack of the final paragraph offers an unconvincing analysis of the prompt.
Storyboard (lines 41-64)
Shifts Chart
Three Sentence Thesis:
In The Known World, author Edward P. Jones reveals the complexity of the character of Moses through the juxtaposition of freedom and slavery. Moses, a slave, seeks to form a deeper connection between himself and the land he is enslaved upon, in turn, making him feel free. By incorporating vivid details of a close-up of Moses in the field, Jones effectively exposes Moses as a man of true passion for self-identity and nature.
Draft #2 (done with table group):
In The
Known World, author Edward P. Jones reveals the complexity of the character
of Moses through the juxtaposition of freedom and slavery. Moses, a slave,
seeks to form a deeper connection between himself and the land he is enslaved
upon, in turn, making him feel free. By incorporating vivid details of a
close-up of Moses in the field, Jones effectively exposes Moses as a man of
true passion for self-identity and nature.
In
the beginning, Jones clearly expresses that Moses lives with family. Moses
works along with “young ones, his son among them” (ll. 4-5). His relationship
to his family, however, is actually quite weak. Jones describes Moses’ peers
with “hunger and tiredness” (ll. 3-4), exposing a fundamental gap between the
connection of Moses and other humans. These concrete words used to describe
these people - as opposed to more personal, intimate descriptions - ultimately
give a tone of unsympathetic distance. Moses is not a man of the people.
After
the opening lines of the passage, Jones changed the focus from Moses’ peers to
the nature around him by using selective details and vivid imagery. Moses
described the Sun as “a five-inch-long memory of red orange laid out in still
waves across the horizon between two mountains” (ll. 11-13). This vivid
description of the Sun and how Moses perceives it is crucial to the beginning
of the passage as it reveals his desire to be close with the nature around him
and shows that he is more focused on the land than he was in the beginning of
the passage about his peers. Moses’ love for the land he lives on sharply
contrasts with the idea of him being in bondage to the land through man.
Moses’
connection to the land is reinforced as Jones focuses back on Moses, as he
bends down to eat a pinch of dirt. Jones gives specific details to show that
Moses eats the dirt to tie him closer to the land. Jones makes the distinction
that Moses does not eat it for the same reason as the “bondage woman” (l. 25).
By using the word ‘bondage’, Jones once again shows that while Moses is a slave,
he finds freedom in nature. The text then goes on to describe the taste of the
dirt in great detail. Through this description, the reader is shown Moses’
perspective, and how he can describe the taste, because he is close with the
land. This “sour moldiness” (l. 37) is said to be “the end of a relationship
[Moses] had begun with the first taste of dirt back in March” (ll. 38-39).
Through this specific word choice, Jones is once again emphasizing the intimacy
between Moses and the land.
Once
he finishes tasting the dirt of the earth, Moses further engrosses himself into
his surrounding nature. Even after the setting of the sun, Moses still
experiences a warm embrace from the black of night, with “the darkness having
taken a nice hold of him” (ll. 41-42). No matter, what the condition of each
day is, if Moses is experiencing the earth’s natural events, he feels a comfort
and joy that fails to arise when he is with people. This shift into a more
comforting and embracing tone highlights just how influential nature is to
Moses, which thus furthers his personal connection to the land itself.
The
characterization further continues when Jones changes the point of view to
Moses’s family when Moses breathes in the smell of rain. Jones provides
context details of Moses’s family life, such as how “his wife knew enough now
not to wait for him to come and eat with them” (ll. 55-56). Because Moses feels
more homely within nature, instead of joining his own family for dinner, the
author provides crisp details as to how Moses possess such deep connections
with the land he toils upon every single day. Furthermore, when Jones resumes
to the narrative after providing context details, he points out that as Moses
is traveling to the forest, he hears the sound of children playing, but when he
turns back, the only sound he hears is the sound of “the last bird of the
day”(l. 63). Through this concrete example, Jones is able to portray Moses’s
deep preference of nature, such as the bird chirping, in favor of humanity,
from the child playing.
Jones reveals Moses as a true man of the land, but not as a man of the people. Moses has an occupational relationship with his peers, who works alongside him every day “for all of fifteen hours’(ll. 14-15). However, this connection is not intimate. This connection doesn’t reveal a personal connection like that of Moses’ relationship with nature. Truly, Jones emphasizes nature as Moses’ most fundamental need, a need that furthers his passion for introspection.
Reflection After Draft #2:
While writing the first draft, I did not realize that I was incorrectly interpreting the passage. This may be explained by my reading of the passage quickly, in fear that I would not have enough time to create a complex thesis and provide specific evidence in the body paragraphs. Indeed, I did not have enough time to discuss symbolism in my final paragraph. Thus, I provided an inadequate, incorrect, and incomplete interpretation of the piece. My second draft, however, fixes many of these problems. For one, my second draft reveals a proper understanding of the prompt - Moses is a slave who has a deep relationship with nature while also having a lack thereof with his peers. This acknowledgement of binary opposites - nature/surroundings and Moses' inner feelings - also provides for a more complex, nuanced thesis and focus. Additionally, Draft #2 has good transitions and flow from paragraph to paragraph; each provides a specific example of a shift and its effect on revealing the character of Moses. Draft #2 also excels in spotting and explaining numerous and differing rhetorical techniques that Jones utilizes.
Having experienced this revision from Draft #1, I now understand the fundamental requirements for a higher level Prose Passage essay. I now know that not only must I understand the passage clearly, I must also find nuance and effectively highlight this complexity throughout my essay. I also now recognize the need for effective transitions to piece each piece of evidence and point of discussion together, in order to show AP graders that I see how the passage and its overall purpose are connected.
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