Throughout
the novel, the law is often personified.
When Robbins mentors Henry, he explains, “the law expects you to know
what is master and what is slave… The law will come to you and stand behind
you” (123). The reverence and personal
connection to the law that Robbins shows in this passage is striking. He seems to link his own morality strongly
with his respect for the law; what’s lawful is right and what’s unlawful is
wrong. His conviction is even enough to
persuade Henry completely, which is why until the end Henry feels no guilt
about buying slaves himself. Henry even
justifies his actions to his father “I ain’t broke no law” (138). The novel is full of what seem to be moral
contradictions. The strangeness of a
former slave turning around to buy slaves himself, people owning their own
relatives and friends, all seem to point to the backwardness and inherent
contradiction of the institution of slavery.
In the scene where Harvey eats
Augustus’s free papers, he and Barnum exhibit still different relationships to
the law. When Barnum tries to stop
Travis, telling him “that ain’t right, Harvey. This just ain’t right,” he
responds, “Right ain’t got nothing to do with it” (212). Harvey’s complete disregard for the law
demonstrates the hatred and evil that fuels slavery. Barnum is willing to stand up for Augustus,
but only for the sake of the law. This
incident contrasts the characters of Harvey and Barnum. While Harvey doesn’t operate with any sense
of morality, Barnum feels a strong sense of what is right and wrong. I think
Jones is arguing that that the problem is that this sense of morality is tied
to an inherently wrong and immoral system.
Are Robbins, Barnum, and Henry any more deserving of respect than Harvey
is?
The last character Jones contrasts to
these men is Counsel. Counsel is the
only white man to do something unlawful toward another white person. However, killing anyone is also a highly
questionable moral act, even though Jones makes it almost satisfying when he
shoots Skiffington. I’m not sure what
Jones means by this, but clearly it is another instance of all the
contradictory, complicated situations that slavery caused. It is unclear to me which characters deserve
the most blame. It seems like the fact
that Henry turned around and became a slaveholder means that Jones doesn’t
believe in a moral distinction between races.
Many characters blame the law, or the institution and tradition of
slavery, however, in the scene when Augustus disowns Henry, Jones seems to say
that objectively, certain things are immoral and it is every person’s
responsibility to realize this, regardless of society around them.
I completely agree with your reading of how the law is personified in the text, and I think this personification functions to detail the division between legally right and morally right. This becomes apparent in the paper-eating scene, whereas Barnum expresses an individual's obligation to moral rights, Travis exhibits a tendency to act under legal rights. The concept of power comes into play here in that, as a White man, Travis is not bound by the law, and the distance between legal and moral rights grants him agency to perform immoral deeds without consequence.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding this, I completely agree that the text seems to emphasize individual responsibility in ambiguous situations, and how individuals have agency to perform the moral act when the law does not dictate one way or another. Through this, I see how it would be easy and understandable for Black slaves to blame the law for not holding individuals to higher standards. Unfortunately, the text seems to suggest when afforded this gap between what is moral and what is legal, those in power tend to abuse it for their own self-interest.
I think your last point about how there is not a moral distinction between races is an interesting one. It is not something I thought of before reading this blog post. Upon further reflection, I have realized that a key point of the novel is to blur the line between right and wrong in order to show that anyone can be right or wrong, regardless of race.
ReplyDeleteUpon first thinking about it, one might think that slavery has a clear right and wrong side that correlates with race: white slaveholders are considered morally wrong, while black slaves are considered the oppressed, morally correct group. And while that holds true in most cases, Jones confuses this dichotomy of rightness by introducing the idea of black slaveholders. Henry and his family overcame their personal oppression, but took a huge step back when it came to morality when Henry purchased his first slave. The once oppressed became the oppressor, and Henry conformed to the white slaveholder’s (Robbins’) standard of rightness instead of his own family’s.
Another interesting character to look at is Fern. She is a black woman who chooses to be known as black instead of “passing” for white (130), and yet she owns slaves. It is difficult to determine whether or not Fern is a morally correct person because, while she is a slave owner, she seems to be kind to her slaves. She also makes a point to mentor and teach young black children. In this novel, Jones weaves an intricate map of right and wrong, and blurs the line so that it is up to the reader to decide who is right and who is wrong.
Abby, I agree with your claim that there is no set definition of the word “right” in this novel, instead there are multiple ones that demonstrate complex relationships between important institutions in the society described in The Known World. Take, for instance, William Robbins, who describes his moral duty to Sheriff Patterson when he says, “You don’t know what the difficulty is in keeping this world going right. You ride around, keeping the peace, but that ain’t got nothing to do with running a plantation fulla slaves” (38). Robbins represents the institution of slavery and the moral code that is associated with that. His moral obligation is to keep the slaves working in an orderly and peaceful manner. The reader are also sees John Skiffington’s strict and principled interpretation of the law with regards to right and wrong. When describing his obligation, Skiffington tells Henry, “My men are not angels, able to fly above and see wrong being committed and come down and turn the right into wrong” (94). Skiffington is referring to the capture of run-away slaves. Although John and his wife are both uncomfortable with the idea of slavery, as evidenced in their reluctance to accept Minerva as a personal servant, John knows what the law says and make his duty to as much as possible enforce it. A third point of view is seen when John’s cousin, Counsel Skiffington visits the family in Georgia, the father of which says, “You never know when a stranger is an angel, come to test which side of right and wrong you standin on” (234). The father of the family is overly concerned with maintaining an exceptionally civil relationship with Counsel, while the relationship he seems to have with his family is anything but civil. When rationalizing reasons behind treating Counsel as an Angel, the father is clearly referencing the story about Lot from the Bible, which he uses to guide him as he deciphers right from wrong. The poor relationship with his family then demonstrates that the man has selectively picked passages that support his belief that being right is treating strangers civilly. Jones, here, makes the commentary that the Bible, the law, and peace are all tools of rationalization people use to convince themselves of their own moral natures.
ReplyDelete