Right vs Left in the Known World

According to the online Miriam Webster dictionary, the word ‘right’ can be an adjective, a noun, an adverb, or a verb. There are thirteen, nine, nine, and three different definitions for right respective to which part of speech is it functioning as, which adds up to a total of thirty-four different definitions. Such a plethora of definitions means it shouldn’t be a surprise the word right is used in a variety of ways in the novel “The Known World.” This prevalence, however, makes it difficult to come up with a coherent argument about the significance of the word right in the novel. Who is to say the meaning is the same when two characters are discussing one’s right and left (“The right leg of the doll”) as when the novel is using right to mean correctness (“he had not been able to get the knee to bend just right”) (9). When examined that way, the meaning of the word right seems very scattered.

It is perhaps more significant to narrow down one’s focus to a specific kind or right and analyze it that way, treating each definition as a separate instance. For example, when narrowing one’s consideration to the significance of right as a direction, right emerges as an indicator of popular opinion or conventions of the time. Henry, who all we know of at the time is that he’s a black slaveowner, has candles burning on the left side of the candlebra in his room but not the right (6). He defies expectations of both black and whites by owning slaves despite being a freed slave himself. The slave Celeste has a limp because of her right leg, its hampering of her movement a reflection of the way that the institution of slavery restricts her life. Her inability to run also keeps her husband enslaved, since he does not want to run away without her but knows that she would not be able to move fast enough to escape to freedom. Her right leg then operates as an enforcement of the popular institution of slavery. Louis has a lazy left eye, which means that his right eye is the one that focuses on people and obeys societal convention (24). Henry uses his right hand to demonstrate to Caldonia how one should properly ride a horse, and his left to demonstrate how one should not (142). In all of these instances where right is used as a direction, the right side indicates societal conventions or popular opinions of the time