Tuesday, August 31, 2010

 

Cyber-Assigment: The Known World

Tomorrow in class we will continue discussing The Known World. I hope we have time to write a short three paragraph essay (afternoon class) to post here. For the morning class, this is homework due Thursday morning.

Consider the following:

In The Known World many characters face internal conflict as they try to reconcile what is legal with what is moral, and lose the battle. List the characters here with a synopsis of what their issue is and how they plan to resolve it, if they can resolve it.

Identify any opponents and friends they might have along with what they have to gain if all works out and what they stand to lose if things do not work out.

Identify these conflicts and as you read the novel note the resolution or absence there of for those characters identified here.


Other questions
How is evil justified in The Known World? Is evil ever ethnically justified?


Homework recap
Make sure you respond to one or more students. Homework is to complete the section in SPHE on paraphrases. There will be a short quiz on Wednesday-Thursday on paraphrasing. We will start working on Essay 1 in SPHE (2-31).

Essay 1 Stewart Pidd Hates English
The essay will be due Sept. 13-16. We will write it in class in groups. You will email it to me. We will start with quizzes on pages 14-15 and 29-30.

Comments:
Evelyn V. Rodriguez-Gonzalez
Professor- Sabir
English -201A
September 1, 2010

What are the qualities of good writing illustrated in E.P. Jones’s, The Known World?

A quality of good writing is being descriptive. It is important to be descriptive because the reader will be able to imagine what is going on in the story. Being descriptive will be helpful to the reader because the story will make more sense and it will be easier to understand. If the story has a lot of details it will get the reader more enthusiastic to keep reading. In the novel The Known World,by E.P. Jones, the quality of being descriptive is shown. “Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more thought that if it were a spot of corn bread. He worked the dirt around in his mouth and swallowed, leaning his head back and opening his eyes in time to see the strip of sun fade to dark blue and then to nothing. “(1) Being descriptive allows the reader to visualize what the characters are living in the story.

Another quality of good writing is being creative and writing about different topics. Writing about different topics is always interesting because the reader gets to read about new things. It gets boring when all the book talk about the same things. In the novel The Known World, by E.P. Jones, not only does it talk about slavery, but about slave masters that were black themselves; “Moses had thought that it was already a strange world that made him a slave to a white man, but God had indeed set it twirling and twisting every which way when he put black people to owning their own kind. Was God even up there attending to business anymore?”(9).
 
Bishwojit sharma
ENG 1B
cv200 9-10.50 am

Edward P.Jones was born on Oct.5,1950. he is also known as fiction writer. he has written so many books among which 'lost in the city','The known world', and "All Aunt Hadar's children" are the popular one. The known world is the hone's first novel. Jone tries to describe the story of African American Henry Townsend, a farmer, bookmaker, and the former slave throughout the book who own his own slave later.
The known world tells us the unthinkable truth in years before the civil war about the black slaves in southern united states. Jone states, "In 1855 in Manchester country Virginia, there were 34 free black families........ and eight of free families owned slaves". From the above statement we can guess that there were not only white people who own slaves but black people do. in the known world, Jone has created a community of 18th century. He has not only described the characters of the black slaves, but also their lives,death and legacies. After reading few pages of this book we can predict that the author,Jone, has a deep interest on history and he also wants people of today's world to know about slavery system of 18th century. With the help of the characters like henry, moses, priscilla, hamie, robbins, Jone has tried to show the mirror of 18th century.
 
Edwin Peabody
Wanda Sabir
2/ September/ 2010
English 201A 8-850
Characters Augustus and Mildred are facing a problem. They are trying to free there son Henry. Robbins his slave owner, has realized how smart Henry is and feels that Henry is worth a lot of money. Augustus and Mildred are facing the situation of never coming up with the amount of money to free their son. Alice is facing the problem of every believing that she is crazy. Mr. Robbins is going crazy also. He is having storms in his head. Rita is is having trouble accepting the fact that her husband is sleeping with another women, philomena. Jesse is killed for running away from his owner. Elias and Mosses don’t get along. Coldonia husband is dying. Elias cant fix his dolls leg. Celeste Has a bad leg also.
 
Ronald Parker
Professor Sabir
Eng 201B
8 September 2010

In the book The Known world only reading the first chapter we see a problem occurring. Mildred and her husband Augustus’s son is a slave that they are trying to free. It’s a bit of an obstacle because Henrys owner sees he is worth a lot of money, and for that he doesn’t want to give him away so easily. But just like if we all had kids we would do anything to get them back so we will be expecting to see the same. Mr. Robbins and Alice are seen to be crazed in the mind, while Elias can’t fix his dolls leg and Celeste has a bad one. I feel there is something that will relate to that in the story. A death has occurred, a slave Jesse is killed for attempting to run away. Cheating is going on with Rita and her husband and she is finding this a tough burden to bury.
 
Joshua Gonzalez

Professor Wanda Sabir

English 201A 8:00a-8:50a

8 September 2010

Chapter 1 Summary

The first chapter of The Known World by Edward P. Jones tells the poignant story of the death of Henry Townsend, a black slave master in Manchester County and the effect on the lives of those around him. The story begins with Moses, the slave overseer and him, “eating the dirt” in the middle of July. Moses was prone to odd behavior. On this July day there is a storm. Moses strips naked in the woods and lays on the ground and masturbates. Unbeknownst to him, he is being watched by another slave named Alice who is prone to even more odd behavior than Moses.
Also, Caldonia Townsend, Henry’s wife is introduced in this chapter. She is portrayed as a loving and devoted wife who sits by her husband’s side night and day. She sings and reads to him at will in order to give him everything she can prior to his demise.

Interestingly, the chapter gives us a brief glimpse into Henry’s life. He is portrayed as a good strong man who was faithful to his wife. Not only that, but he was an honest man who seemed to treat his slaves well. The story travels into Henry’s past and informs the reader that Henry was a former slave. His father purchased his own freedom and the freedom of his mother. Henry had to wait in order to be reunited with his family. At first this was tragic for Henry, however he made the most of his situation and used his mothers food to bribe his way into being his master’s groom, a job he seemed to enjoy. He used his parent’s guilt and compassion as a weapon against them by standing them up several times and making them wait for their weekly visits.

The story also gives the reader a view of Robbins’ life, the slave master in which Henry is a slave to. Robbins is portrayed as both a kind man who repays kindness as well as a cruel man who withholds Henry from his parents.
Overall, Edward P. Jones peeks the reader’s interest as to the direction of the story. He develops the characters from the very first chapter in such a way that the reader feels an immediate connection. I anticipate more interesting developments throughout the rest of this story.
 
Jimmy Tran
Professor Sabir
English 201A 1 – 3PM
08 September 2010

The following character John Skiffington faces a tough problem after the marriage between him and the wife Winifred Skiffington. Soon after the marriage happened, they received Minerva , the slave that was a gift from their friend. The problem is that they both did not wanted to do nothing with slavery at all. The moral that they use to deal with this issue is that instead of treating her like a slave, they instead treat her like one of there family members. She basically became a part of the family. Additionally, they felt that this was the best way of resolving the conflict because they didn’t have the heart of sending out a human being to do unconditional hard labor for them. In this problem Minerva gain two caring loving adults. The Skiffingtons didn’t lose anything but an opportunity to use her as a slave but overall they did the right thing.
 
Martin'aye Bullock
Professor Sabir
Eng. 201A 1-3
12/September/2010

"At the wagon Mildred sank to her knees and held on to Henry, who, at last realizing that he was to be seperated from her, began crying."(16). A conflict within the book arose when Mildred and Agustus Townsend are forced to give their son, Henry, up for slave owning. He can't be freed until they have enough money to get him back. However, they don't and his master has just begun to realize that Henry is worth more than he thought he was worth.
 
Folami Brumfield
Professor Sabir
English 201 A
8 September 2010

Chapter 1 Summary

This story is about a family divided up by slavery. This story is unbelievable in its purest form, to think that a family was seperated and dehumanized just because of the color of ones skin.This story is made up of some charasmatic and strong willed people because even in the darkest of circumstances they still found a ray of light. The chapter goes into some of the charatcters being limited to eating dirt and it talks about some physical hurts that some of the charatcters inherited. This story is filled with dishonesty, love, and a determination out of this world to survive.
 
Folami Brumfield
Professor Sabir
English 201 A
8 September 2010

Chapter 1 Summary

This story is about a family divided up by slavery. This story is unbelievable in its purest form, to think that a family was seperated and dehumanized just because of the color of ones skin.This story is made up of some charasmatic and strong willed people because even in the darkest of circumstances they still found a ray of light. The chapter goes into some of the charatcters being limited to eating dirt and it talks about some physical hurts that some of the charatcters inherited. This story is filled with dishonesty, love, and a determination out of this world to survive.
 
Adalie Villalobos
Professor Sabir
English 201B (8-9a.m.)
2 September 2010

In chapter 2 Augustus and Mildred are faced with a big problem. They have a son who is named Henry and he's still a slave under Mr. Robbinson. Mr.Robbinson has agreed to let Augustus pay off the amount asked for Henry. Although there have some bumps down the road, they are still allowed to see him once every week, which soon turned into once every month after Augustus hurt Henry. Although this caused the parents not to see Henry as much, they still went to see him no matter what.
Henry has a someone taking care of him while he is still a slave. Her name is Rita and she caused more problems for Augustus and Mildred. When Augustus was able to pay off the fee for Henry, Rita wanted to escape with them and although Augustus opposed to it at first, he gave in and helped her escape.Luckily Mr.Robbinson didn't try to find her quickly because it gave Henry time to think of where to send Rita.Henry ended up sending Rita to New York which is far away from Mr.Robbinson
 
Joanne Africano
Professor Sabir
English 201A
Mon-Thurs 8-8:50am

Characters John Skiffington and his wife Winifred are facing whether to keep their slave Minerva, or to give her up and sell her. Many slaves try to escape yet once they try and escape, they have to pay for he consequence.

In The Known World, evil is shown when the slave master mistreat their slaves. An example of evil is when Elias tries to escape and Robbins catches her and slices his ear and shot him.
Evil is not the right thing to do. In my opinion it is immoral and no one should have to go through the things that all the slaves went through within this book.
I believe Edward P. Jones was getting readers to see how the old days used to be and how slaves were treated. He wants to compare how it was back then and to how it is now a days.
 
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