Analysis Of James Baldwin 's ' The Fire Next Time '

This is a very important part of the book because it shows the reader that the

There is a very thin line between love and hate in James Baldwin’s essay “Notes of a Native Son.” Throughout this essay James Baldwin continually makes references to life and death, blacks and whites, and love and hate. He uses his small experiences to explain a much larger, more complicated picture of life. From the first paragraph of the essay to the last paragraph, Baldwin continually makes connections on his point of view on life; beginning with the day his father died, to the time that his father was buried. James Baldwin is an outstanding author, who creatively displays his ability to weave narration and analysis throughout his essays.

James Baldwin argues that “such Frustrations, so long endured, is driving many strong, admirable men and women whose only crime is color

On the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation, James Baldwin writes a letter to his nephew regarding identity as a black man in 1960’s America. Using a wide range of rhetorical devices, the writer attempts to convince his vulnerable relative to believe he is forever loved. In “My Dungeon Shook” from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, the author presents a unique rhetorical strategy which uses comparison and description to reach the main goal of helping the reader focus on the most important points of the writing. The grand design for this section of the novel allows Baldwin to accomplish the purpose by addressing the American citizens in 1963 in order to inform them how black and white people cannot have equal opportunities until the Caucasians recognize their crimes and African-Americans lovingly forgive their previous oppressors.

James Baldwin was a prominent African American writer, social critic, and racial justice advocate in the 1960’s and 70’s. In his 1963 Talk to Teachers he aimed to persuade an audience of teachers that education must exist to challenge systems and structures of power and that when it does not, it only serves to reinforce them and amplify their injustice. He specifically focuses on racial hierarchies and white supremacy in the United States. He achieves his persuasive purpose through the strategic use of first, second, and third person pronouns and the use of evocative language, and emphasizes the actionability of his message with anaphora.

Baldwin determines that violence and racial separatism are not acceptable solutions for achieving “power”. Baldwin believes that black people will only be able to achieve lasting influence in America if they love and accept white people. In contrast, writing 52 years after Baldwin, Coats tells his own son to “struggle” but not

James Baldwin in “Notes of a Native Son” writes about the death of his father and his struggle in America during segregation. He also reveals that he didn’t have a very good relationship with his ill father. Throughout the essay there is a repetition of bitterness. Also, Baldwin’s experiences reveal his purpose for writing the essay. One passage that is especially revealing is on page 222 which says, “When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year. In that year I had had time to become aware of the meaning of all my father’s bitter warnings, had discovered the secret of his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me.” This passage reveals how Baldwin’s relationship with his father, and his father’s warnings help demonstrate how hatred can cause negative effects on African Americans.

King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” discusses the topic of segregation and just and unjust laws, whereas Baldwin in his “Notes of a Native Son” places an emphasis on relationships, particularly the relationship between his father and him. Additionally, Baldwin discusses the impact of racism on the lives of African Americans during that time. Although these essays are dated back over fifty years ago; the topics discussed in them are still very common today.

Personal stories and descriptions of major events are narrated throughout James Baldwin’s works as he analyzes the nature of the relationship between white and black America. The marriage of narration and analysis are especially evident in Baldwin’s essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” As Baldwin describes his father and their relationship until his father’s death, he simultaneously comments about the relationship between white and black America. Baldwin compares the events of his experience with concurrent American events to conclude about the nature of his personal relationships and the relationship between races; namely, that one must come to accept the

The first essay is about James Baldwin's personal perspective of being black in racist America. The second essay goes on to how religion and Christianity allowed the segregation and oppression of blacks to grow between both whites and blacks of the United States (Baldwin, 1963). Christianity in the United States can be easily be compared to the opiate of the masses. Religion controlled the lives of the whites and forced the blacks to live under the oppressive rule of the whites.

African Americans have to strive extremely hard to be successful and obtain a place in America. When reading Baldwin’s statement it seems much like Martin Luther King Jr. statement: “One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land”(3). African Americans are trying to obtain their place in American society but are restricted to the area that the white Americans set aside for them. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin are striving to make a difference to better America by publicly sharing their emotions.

In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin addressed the problem of racism that existed in the early 1960s. He gives very powerful accounts of his life growing up in Harlem in the 1930s and 40s. Throughout the book he gives accounts of how whites, blacks, Christians, and Muslims all can be blamed for the racial tensions that existed in the early 1960s. While Baldwin spends much of the criticism on whites, Christians, and Jews, and their inability to give up their hold on the political, financial, and religions power of the country, he also holds the Black and Muslim communities responsible for not working harder to make things better. Baldwin does not feel that the Whites are totally accountable for the racial situation that exists in the

Baldwin continues on and says that blacks were being oppressed everywhere. “…Negro girls who set upon a white girl in the subway because…she was stepping on their toes. Indeed she was, all over the nation” (73). Not only does this portray the ever growing tension felt among African Americans in a certain area, it expresses the tension felt across the nation. African Americans everywhere were still continuously looked down upon, causing agitation, which was the current social condition blacks and whites faced.

In the book “The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin there are two essays “My Dungeon Shook, Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation” and "Down At The Cross, Letter from a Region of My Mind" in which the reader learns about the characters and throughout the book themes of authority and oppression, history and religion, fear, and love can be significant to add to the importance of the message of the book. To begin, the book is written from the author’s perspective, which is James Baldwin. He is an African American who was born into poverty in Harlem. The Fire Next Time is a clear view of race relations in the United States, it also brings up topics on Baldwin’s experiences. In “My Dungeon Shook,” he addresses to his nephew, whose name is also James. In “Down At The Cross,” James Baldwin explains the difficult relationship with his stepfather who is the Baptist preacher David Baldwin and his own struggles. James, Baldwin's nephew is fourteen-year-old. James is said to have a strong resemblance to his father who is the author’s brother, and portrays a similarity in the personality in which he describes it a usually acting aggressive to not be seen as weak. James Baldwin tells James about not becoming like his grandfather. Although there are a few similarities between James and his grandfather, Baldwin thinks that the James’s way of seeing things are likely to avoid the mistakes his grandfather made.

Baldwin accuses his countrymen of inflicting oppression upon his father and brother, James’s dad, and calls it a crime that hundreds of thousands of lives are being destroyed by the white man with only few understanding or willing to admit it. He levels this charge because he provides a first-hand account of the hardship African Americans, his family in particular, were experiencing at that time. Baldwin suggests a realization to the problem of segregation and unfair treatment of blacks in America. He recalls the day that his parents and grandmother found out James’s father was expecting a baby, and how the mood was rather melancholic because an innocent boy would be brought up in a world that treated him as second best. Regardless of how the outside world would perceive him, his family would love him unconditionally and with open arms because they understood the meaning of rejection. According to Baldwin, white America either did not know about the injustices regarding black America or did not want to know about them. The suggestion that they did not know about black state of affairs came about because they were unable to experience what African Americans were enduring in a society that only wanted them for their labor. It is possible to imagine what it would be like to be discriminated against, but definitely impossible to fully grasp the concept without spending a day in the life of a black man. Then, Baldwin brings to light that there are