Point of View

Except for "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," Uncle Tom's Children is told in the third person. Wright does not violate any unified sense of perspective by relating "The Ethics of Jim Crow" in the first person. This first episode must stand apart, as it functions as a crucial statement of the author's own experience, which the author possesses by using the first person voice.

Generally, using the third person creates a narrative told dispassionately, like a piece of journalism. The facts can speak for themselves, without interference from any distinct narrator's agenda. This leaves the reader free to come to conclusions on the evidence presented, as no reason exists to doubt the narrator's reliability. Thus one reads about crimes committed - Big Boy killing the white man Jim, for example - and forms a judgment on what happened as a neutral observer. This detached perspective...