Identity struggle †The narrow and broad path in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain Essay

mob Baldwins bread and merelyter was deeply marked by an identity struggle. A struggle to find go forth what it meant to be an Ameri mass and foremost what it meant to be an Afro Ameri house. Like in some other works he besides deals with this musical theme in his first overbold Go Tell It on the Mountown(prenominal), where can buoy Grimes con scarers this problem on his fourteenth birth twenty-four hours. The quest paper lead therefore take a look at the possibilities offered to the Afro American compositors cases in the story, especi appeasey to behind, and what function the perform service plays in this context. Moreover it pass on out cable television keister Grimes situation surrounded by a ghostly up-bringing in poverty and the longing for a better financial vivification by adopting exsanguine dashs. Finally it will try to elaborate on the basis of two advert scenes whether lavs decision is based on faith or hopelessness.II. Imposed roles Afro Ameri cans in a dominantly vacuous edictFrom the actually beginning of the novel the possibilities of Afro Americans in American society atomic number 18 depicted as very remote, especially in conjuration Grimes case Every ane had al courses said that rear end would be a preacher when he grew up, just standardised his father. . His entire life and all the people in it are set in a religious environ handst, blocking out any kind of secular influence. As a issuance of detail no other future option for him is ever menti adeptd in the novel. At some point though his teachers nonice that he is very intelligent Youre a very bright boy, toilet Grimes Keep up the good work. .His parents applyt seem to be cognisant of this or dupet administer this to be of importance for his future perspectives. This hopelessness can be traced by dint ofout each characters life in the novel.Those who do non accept their role imposed to them by society tend to fail in life. For example Aunt Floren ce who sets out jointure in order to achieve a higher living standard, but ends up al unrivaled afterward driving her husband away(predicate) from her due to her ambition to gain a higher social standard. Further, tins veritable father Richard is crushed by the injustice against black men in a dominantly white society and consequently commits suicide. accordingly, John and the following generations are taught to accept the circumstances and their status in American society. In order to cope with this they are advised to lead a highly religious life and to shut out all secular elements. It is this formulation that Baldwin criticizes mostly.He blames the black people for pass judgment the myth of being inferior to white people without a struggle . Moreover he accuses them of copy white ways and replacing their own African traditions . Aunt Florence even takes a smell throw out in the novel by trying to bleach her peel off with beauty products, hereby rejecting her black ski n and thus her heritage. At the same time he blames the Anglo-American society for depriving black people of all immunity and ability to direct their own go bads . This identity struggle is clearly visible in Johns case and will be discussed in detail in chapter three.2.1. Black church building as a helpful companion or a mere distraction from creation?Since the current story evolving somewhat John primarily takes place in a church and deals with his conversion it is important to take a side by side(predicate) look at the role of Black Christianity and the Black Church. The Temple of the Fire Baptized, family Grimes church, is presented to the reader as a place of redemption and as a shelter from all the sin in the world. John is confronted with this supposedly sin on his way to church every Sunday in the form of men and women coming home from bars and cat endures . The unvarying threats of damnation and hell itself, which Macebuh states as being dissolve of the Black Chris tianity, withal appear throughout the entire novel. Due to the permanent warnings of temptations and sin by his parents and the church community, John lives in abiding hero-worship of graven images wrath, even in harmless places much(prenominal) as the moviesHe waited for the darkness to be shattered by the diminish of the second coming, for the ceiling to break up upward, revealing, for every eye to see, the chariots of fire on which descended a wrathful God and all the host of Heaven.In return for refuge and brotherhood, the members are curtailed freedom and have to renounce all worldly plea authentics. Especially this aspect of religion is irreproducible for John and even more(prenominal) for Roy, who openly criticizes his father for forcing them to obeyYeah we dont k outright how lucky we is to have a father what dont want you to go to movies, and dont want you to play in the streets, and dont want you to have no friends, and he dont want this and he dont want that, and he dont want you to do nothing. We so lucky to have a father who just wants us to go to church and read the Bible .In the novel the church primarily seems to be a place of comfort for those in sorrow, such as Aunt Florence. She remembers having gone to church only once since she travel to the North and her visit to the Temple of the FireBaptized now is due to her cancer and fear of death. So it seems that people preferably turn to God out of despair than out of strong belief. This supposition is also enforced by an ironic observation the narrator makes concerning the characters habits of church dischargeTarry service officially began at eight, but it could begin at any time, whenever the Lord moved one of the saints to enter the church and pray. It was seldom, however, that anyone arrived before eight thirty, the Spirit of the Lord being sufficiently tolerant to allow the saints time to do their Saturday-night shopping, pluck their houses, and put their children to bed.Especi ally the younger people do not seem to go to church voluntarily to help out, leaving John usually alone to clean up the Temple, unless Elisha shows up to view as him a hand Lord, Sister McCandless, he said, look like it aint never but us two. I dont know what the other young folks does on Saturday nights, but they dont come nowhere near here. . Ironically, while Elisha says this, John thinks to himself that not even Elisha shows up frequently on Saturdays.All these line of achievements show that the so called saints in the novel do not go to church out of religious reasons but because they are desperate and consider the church as a rallying point around which they sought to lessen their pain by sharing in one anothers joys and suffering as Macebuh puts it . Peter Bruck interprets this similarly. He sees the negro Church as the only available social space for the black society in history. however still this social field of activity does not help to change the inhuman conditions e ach character suffers and the prayers also do not improve their psychological and social circumstance . In this context, particularly in chapter two, The Prayers of the Saints, the reader gets an idea of what the prayer of each member consists.During mass all of them reflect on their retiring(a) and recall their sins, but they do not pray out of their grapple for God but out of fear that He might make them suffer his wrath, since He is not the compassionate God of the unexampled Testament . Colin MacInnes goes even promote in his essay by referring to religion as a boisterous and constant compulsion that never abandons them the characters a second . Bone states that religion means refuge from the terrors of free-and-easy life and God therefore represents safety God and safety became synonymous, and the church, a part of his survival scheme. However, the price for this safety is renouncement of in-person forefinger of ones sex and social power of ones people . Overall Bone r eckons that the church offers either the path of self-hatred or the path of self-acceptance, with Christ as a kind of spiritual bleaching cream. In this structure the Negro lot function as a ritual enactment of their daily pain .Edward Margolies depicts the Negro Church as a kind of community newspaper which links the new immigrants to their Southern past and functions as an sidetrack for their rage, terror and frustrations . In addition to all the authors here mentioned, Margolies expands the churchs functions upon the field of masculine identity. The church exemplifies by means of the wrathful Old Testament God a masculine role mannequin some Negro adolescences lack in their family environment . This can also be applied to Johns case. Rejected by his father, or as the reader knows, his measuringfather, he feels unlove and unworthy. On the one hand he despises God, since he sees his father as Gods minister . On the other hand though, he longs to be saved and become Gods son, who would whence protect him past he would no longer be the son of his father, but the son of his Heavenly Father, the King. and then he need no longer fear his father, for he could take, as it were, their quarrel over his fathers head to Heaven to the Father who loved him, who had come down in the flesh to die for him.This passage clearly shows that the church provides John with some kind of psychic compensation for the love his father deprives him of and that he sees in God an ally against his father. This would become redundant if he were to find out that Gabriel is not his tangible father and that he has also sinned in his past life, namely in the form of his unclaimed eldest son with Esther . As for Elisha, who also tries to bring him closer to God, John sees in him a brotherly and paternal figure he looks up to, but he also feels attracted to him in sexual ways. Elisha somehow represents the temporal protection and guidance John needs in order to find his identity.He i s also the one who shows him another side of God and religion. Instead of the wrathful God his father preaches him, Elisha speaks of a caring and blessing one who protects and saves . In general, the church is depicted as a kind of sanctuary for the characters, just as it was for pile Baldwin himself. The black Church offered him in a similar way shelter and refuge from the terrors of the streets . Overall, accepted belief is disregarded in contrast to safety which now stands for Christianity.III. In search of identity in the midst of secularization and clericalizationGiven the background so far John Grimes is trapped between the clerical life his parents force unto him and the secular life that awaits him outside his home on the streets. The title of the novel, the first line of a Negro spiritual, refers to the good news of Jesus Christs existence. Additionally, the first chapter that introduces the reader to the characters is called The seventh day, a clear reference to the cr eation story of Genesis . Both function as allusions to biblical constructions. In a figurative sense, Johns fourteenth birthday can therefore be seen as a creative process, which marks his finding of self-identity, as well in religious wrong as in worldly or sexual terms. The following chapters will take a closer look at two passages where John faces different paths concerning his identity, one characterized by a more real(a) and white world and another leading to a strictly religious life.3.1. Johns pickup to Manhattan Denial of his black heritage?On his fourteenth birthday John uses the money his mother gives him to barter for a metro card and drive down to Manhattan. As mentioned before John feels attracted to the shining and frothy world of white men and is not so much interested in his people . He cares more about what the white people think of him and feels very proud when they notice his recognition in school . This intelligence symbolizes for him a special power the others do not possess and which he hopes will bring him the love he lacks Perhaps, with this power he might one day win that love which he so longed for. . For John the white world represents power and success . Thus, once he arrives at Central Park and reaches the vizor of the hill, he feels as if he could counter the entire cityHe did not know why, but there arose in him an exultation and a sense of power, and he ran up the hill like an engine, or a madman, willing to throw himself headlong into the city that glowed before him Then he, John, matte up like a giant who might crumble this city with his anger he felt up like a tyrant who might crush this city beneath his heel he felt like a long-awaited mortifyor at whose feet flowers would be strewn He would be, of all, the mightiest, the most beloved, the Lords anointed, and he would live in this shining city which his roots had seen with longing from far away.There alone on the top of the hill he dreams of being part of the city and belonging to the upper white class, which would accept him unconditionally. save as soon as he recalls the peoples reactions to him he is pulled back into reality He remembered the people he had seen in the city, whose eyes held no love for him and how when they passed they did not see him, or, if they saw him, they smirked. . disdain these incidents John still feels as part of the white social stratum due to his intelligence, but reality looks quite different and resembles more his parents, especially his fathers warnings of the city and white men in general. As he walks along Central Park he keeps imagining what it would be like living in such an environment and being wealthy. The absence of God in this society is not a drawback for John, since he sees that the way of life according to the Lord has not really helped his parents with their everyday strugglesIn the compact way, the way of the cross, there awaited him only humiliation forever there awaited him, one day, a house like his fathers house, and a church like his fathers, and a job like his fathers, where he would grow old and black with hunger and toil. The way of the cross had given him a belly filled with wind and had bent his mothers back they had never worn picturesque clothes, but here, where the buildings contested Gods power and where the men and women did not fear God, here he might eat and drink to his hearts content and clothe his body with wondrous fabrics . disdain the occurrence that he knows that their legal opinions were not of God, and their way was not Gods way , he cannot see how the white society, being so beautiful and gracious, could end up in hell. He himself had been witness of their cogency to do good when he was sick and one of his teachers had brought him medicine. Although John does not really know unless who he is and where he belongs, at this point he does know that he never wants to end up like his father. Due to his young age and inexperience it is m ore likely that he feels attracted to the white society on the grounds of a wealthier future it seems to offer and not because he tries to deny his black heritage.His curse to black people derives basically from the fact that his entire Negro environment characterizes itself by poverty and does not offer him a successful, strong or caring male role model. On the contrary, Johns self-hatred and accusation are a result of his fathers treatment. Hence, he tries to find an commentary for his fathers rejection in his own shortcomings, such as his desire to leave the ghetto or his intelligence which singles him out . Gabriels ongoing criticism of Johns outward appearance leads to peril and self-doubtHis father had always said that his face was the face of Satan and was there not something in the lift of the eye frontal bone, in the way his rough hair formed a V on his brow that bore witness to his fathers words? In the eye there was a light that was not the light of Heaven, and the mouth trembled, lustful and lewd, to drink deep of the wines of Hell two great eyes, and a broad, low forehead, and the triangle of his nose, and his enormous mouth, and the barely perceptible cleft in his chin, which was, his father said, the mark of the have wordss little finger he most passionately desired to know whether his face was ugly or not.By contrast, the white society stands for success and seems to offer him all the possibilities his father deprives him of. Most of all John associates access to knowledge with white people. Next to the incident at school, which was mentioned earlier on summon three, John feels both attracted and frightened by the earthly concern Library on 42nd Street. He believes books to be part of high culture and thus a white privilege. Scared he stands in front of the building not knowing how people would react to him if he dared to go insideHe loved this street, not for the people or the shops but for the stone lions that guarded the great mai n building of the Public Library, a building filled with books and unimaginably vast, and which he had never yet dared to enter But he had never gone in because the building was so big that it must be full of corridors and stain steps, in the maze of which he would be lost and never find the book he wanted. And then everyone, all the white people inside, would know that he was not used to great buildings, or to many books, and they would look at him with sympathize with.This passage also shows that even though the big city fascinates John, it also seems to him as a kind of maze that terrifies him and brings back his fathers words of warning. Despite all these admonitions and the fact that John is aware of the Negro treatment and history in the United States , he believes that his knowledge is the key to white acceptance. His getaway to Manhattan also leads him to Broadway, which he automatically associates with the broad path to Hell and damnation Broadway the way that led to dea th was broad, and many could be found thereon . Still he immediately dismisses this depiction and decides to see a movie on Sixth Avenue, where once again he is plagued by thoughts of God punishing him for this supposedly sin . Inspired by the main character of the movie, whom he admires for her strength and independency, John tries to figure out whether there is a deuce-ace path in life John thought of Hell, of his souls redemption, and the struggle to find a compromise between the way that led to life everlasting and the way that ended in the pit. But there was none .This trip to Manhattan signifies for John an pretermit from his fathers religious world and one step closer to the life he wishes to lead, one that is characterized by financial security and social status independent of his skin color. As mentioned before, this tendency in John can be ascribed to a longing for a better life and not to an think denial of his blackness. Still his desire to be part of the white soc iety leads automatically to a negation of his ancestors past and hence to alienation from his own people. Therefore Johns desired white identity is only a mock identity which would never work.The only way of finding his real identity is by accepting his own heritage and history and consequently his own father . Moreover, by attending the movies he does not only carry out an act of social participation but also an act of defiance both against morality and religion, since he identifies with the white heroines attitude, who tells the world to pet her ass . Ironically, in the end John remains in his secular thinking as much a victim of his fears of God as those who are willing to accept Gods power . 3.2. Johns conversion True belief or a mere survival plait?The other path, the narrow one which is available for John, is the religious one his parents and his community offer him. Here the third chapter The Treshing Floor or rather the conversion scene in this chapter can be taken as a g ood example. Even though John mentioned before that he did not long for the narrow way, where all his people walked , in chapter three he engages in an ecstatic conversion. Therefore this experience is self-styled and rather seems to be a flight from the quest for identity into the ostensible safety the black church offers . During his spiritual experience he encounters various obstacles, his father being the most difficult one. While John is lying in front of the altar he sees his father looking down on him without pity or love, but preferably he keeps hearing him say Im going to baffle sin out of him. Im going to beat it out .As mentioned before the only way to God is through his father and by admitting his sin. Like the son of Noah, he too had do fun of his fathers bareness and was now cursed for it to the present just like Ham. By accepting this, namely that all niggers had come from this most undutiful of Noahs sons and that a curse was re-create from moment to moment, fro m father to son , he embraces his black heritage. Some critics, e.g. Csaba Csap, go even further by assuming that by doing so he also embraces his homosexuality, which comes to show in his relationship with Elisha . But this is exclusively a different topic of the novel, which does not contribute to this essays matter and will therefore not be discussed at this point. His ongoing journey takes him into a grave, which symbolizes the past, isolation, death but also resurrection, where the collective singing and praying further strengthens his realization of his own history In this murmur that filled the grave he recognized a sound that he had always hear This sound had filled Johns life, so it now seemed, fromthe moment he had first drawn breath. He had heard it everywhere It was in his fathers anger, in his mothers calm insistence, and in the vehement mockery of his aunt Yes, he had heard it all his life, but it was only now that his ears were opened to this sound that came from darkness, that yet bore such sure witness to the glory of the light. And now in his moaning, and so far from any help, he heard it in himself.This experience creates an identity in John which no longer separates him from his black environment but rather strengthens the feeling of solidarity. Nevertheless, this identity-shaping does not change Johns relationship to his father the living word that could conquer the great division between his father and himself. But it did not come . Peter Bruck explains this situation with the fact that Johns experience does not signify relief from his damnation, but merely constitutes a short ease from the existing situation, similar to the Noah and Ham network . This assumption is also supported by Gabriels comment after Johns conversion It comes from your mouth I want to see you live it. Its more than a notion. . He reminds John of the fact that his conversion is merely the first step and that he is still to be tested by the long, complex jour ney of life. This is also emphasized by the unchanged picture the saints face the morning after Johns conversion, which stands in contrast to the victimization he has undergoneYet the houses were there, as they had been the windows, like a thousand, blinded eyes, stared outward at the morning at the morning that was the same for them as the mornings of Johns innocence, and the mornings before his birth. The water ran in the gutters with a small, dissatisfy sound on the water traveled paper, burnt matches, sodden cigarette-ends gobs of spittle, green-yellow, brown, and pearly the leavings of a dog, the mold of a drunken man, the dead sperm, trapped in rubber, of one abandoned to his lust.This passage clearly shows the constant burdens of life and the unimproved reality awaiting John. The picture is characterized by decay and waste and thus depicts Johns hopeless situation in spite of his new found identity.As his father mentioned to him he is still endangered by his environment a nd his relationship to yonder has not improved at all. The people will still confront him with the same pity and hostility as before, calling him Frog-eyes and other names . Hence the church only offers a temporary place of refuge without really creating better options for the future. It only part illuminates things and merely hides or damns others . But in the midst of all this pessimism there also exists a electric arc of hope for John. He has now found a new ally in Elisha who already helped him through his conversion and will keep on doing so in the future. Further, he has introduced John to the love of God, instead of the theological terror of the false God his father preaches . As Robert Bone also hints at, the church can function as a path of self-hatred or as a path of self-acceptance . The following lines point to a new start and ongoing journey lying ahead of JohnThe solarize had come full awake. It was waking the streets, and the houses, and crying at the windows. It f ell over Elisha like a favourable robe, and struck Johns forehead, where Elisha had kissed him, like a seal ineffaceable forever.Again, this kiss and the rising sun can be interpreted as Johns awakening homosexuality, which in the following works of Baldwin is also seen as a source of hope . The closing lines of the novel Im ready Im coming. Im on my way. impart an open ending to the story, leaving out which path John is going to take after all.IV. ConclusionThe ending of the novel leaves the reader wondering whether John has definitely chosen the narrow path he so long avoided, even despised. Only several(prenominal) hours before, he still dreamed of a wealthy life midst the white society, far away from his own people and poverty. The moment he realizes that this world was not for him and that they would never let him enter , as his father always kept preaching him, he turns to his only other option, the black church. Thus, it seems to be more a last desperate act to survive in t he brutal streets of Harlem, than an act of religious belief. This step can also be found in James Baldwins own biography. After having served as a preacher for several years, he left the black church unsatisfied and misunderstood, still distinct for his own identity as an American, better as an Afro American. In exchange for sanctuary he had to give up his sexuality and entirely isolate himself from the outer world, which might get him into conflict with the white power.This meant exchanging the personal power of ones sex and the social power of ones people in exchange for the power of the Word, in Baldwins eyes the historical betrayal of the Negro Church . A similar pattern of behavior can be observed in John, who sees in religion also a survival gimmick. Although during Johns religious ecstasy the reader might get the economic crisis that he is acting according to belief, his final words to Elisha on the way home evoke hazard in this decision no matter what happens to me, whe re I go, what folks say about me, no matter what anybody says, you remember I was saved. I was there. . It seems as though he knows that his conversion is not the finish line and yet another journey awaits him that may lead him away from the church, as it did James Baldwin.V. BibliographyPrimrliteraturBaldwin, James Go Tell It on the Mountain. upstart York Bantam Dell 1980.SekundrliteraturBone, Robert A. James Baldwin in Keneth Kinnamon James Baldwin. A Collection of comminuted Essays. in the raw Jersey Prentice Hall 1974, p. 28-38.Bruck, Peter Von der store front church zum American Dream. James Baldwin und der amerikanische Rassenkonflikt. Amsterdam B. R. Grner 1975, p.24-36.Csap, Csaba Race, Religion and Sexuality in Go Tell It on the Mountain in Carol E. Henderson James Baldwins Go Tell It on the Mountain. Historical and Critical Essays. New York Peter Lang 2006, p.57-74.Fabre, Michel Fathers and Sons in James Baldwins Go Tell It on the Mountain in Keneth Kinnamon James Bald win. A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey Prentice Hall 1974, p.120-138.Jones, Beau rainfly The Struggle for Identity in The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 17, No.2 (June 1966), p.107-121.Kent, George E. Baldwin and the Problem of Being in Therman B. ODaniel James Baldwin. A Critical Evaluation. London AD. Donker 1977, p.19-29.Macebuh, Stanley James Baldwin A critical Study. New York The Third Press Joseph Okpaku issue Company 1973, p.49-68.MacInnes, Colin Dark Angel The Writings of James Baldwin in Gibson, Donald B. Five Black Writers. New York New York University Press 1970, p.119-126.Margolies, Edward The Negro Church James Baldwin and the Christian Vision in Harold Bloom James Baldwin. New York Chelsea House Publishers 1986, p.59-76.Rosenblatt, Roger Out of Control Go Tell It on the Mountain and Another Country in Harold Bloom James Baldwin. New York Chelsea House Publishers 1986, p.77-90.Sylvander, Carolyn Wedin James Baldwin. New York Frederick Ungar Publishing Co . 1980, p.27-44.View as multi-pages