Nightjohn

12-year-old Sarny is Nightjohn’s narrator, telling the story from her first-person perspective. The grammar with which the novel is written reinforces Sarny’s lack of education. Despite lacking access to education, she values learning, letters, and numbers. Even before Nightjohn becomes her teacher, she absorbs information through observation and reflects on daily lessons. Nightjohn’s arrival allows Sarny to pursue her natural hunger for knowledge.

Sarny’s character reveals that she and other slaves are enslaved both physically and mentally. Before Nightjohn mentions experiencing freedom in the north, Sarny has no concept of what freedom means. She doesn’t set foot outside of the plantation until Nightjohn shares his secret school at the novel’s end. Through her character, Gary Paulsen shows that slaves were brainwashed to believe their masters and unable to experience reality beyond plantations.

Sarny’s character undergoes a transformation throughout the novel. In the beginning, she lacks hope and means to pursue her desire to learn. By the novel’s end, she has learned to read and write—skills that give her the power to narrate-write her own story. Although her body is still Clel Waller’s to command, her mind is no longer enslaved.