Slave on the Block

The narration in the short story “Slave on the Block” uses a third-person point of view and largely a free indirect style, a form of narration that doesn’t distinguish the story from a character’s (or characters’) thoughts or experience of its events. In addition to the free indirect style, however, Hughes uses omniscient and direct styles.

When Hughes writes, “Leave them unspoiled and just enjoy them, Michael and Anne felt” (Paragraph 1), the point of view is third person and omniscient: The narrator has access to the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters. When Hughes writes, “Anne said” (Paragraph 30), the point of view is third person and direct: Hughes then presents Anne’s dialogue directly, from an objective viewpoint, using dialog tags. When Hughes writes, “Of course Covarrubias wasn’t a Negro, but how he caught the darky spirit!” (Paragraph 2), he’s using free indirect style: The joint viewpoint of the Carraways is indistinguishable from the narration, the narrator isn’t explicit through a dialog tag (such as “Michael and Anne felt”), and the diction reflects the two characters’ breathless and clueless voices.

Hughes uses these points of view to paint a fuller picture of the distinction between the experiences of the white characters and the Black characters.