Baldwin's Effects of Narration and Analysis in Notes of a Native Son

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

Narrative is a form of writing used by writers to convey their experiences to an audience. James Baldwin is a renowned author for bringing his experience to literature. He grew up Harlem in the 1940’s and 1950’s, a crucial point in history for America due to the escalading conflict between people of different races marked by the race riots of Harlem and Detroit. This environment that Baldwin grew up in inspires and influences him to write the narrative “Notes of a Native Son,” which is based on his experience with racism and the Jim-Crow Laws. The narrative is about his father and his influence on Baldwin’s life, which he analyzes and compares to his own experiences. When Baldwin comes into

“Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is” (Zinsser 5). James Baldwin did exactly that when he published his memoir, Notes of A Native Son. Through a collection of ten essays about his real life experiences, Baldwin was successful and effective in opening the reader’s eyes to the racial oppression that is reality for many across America. Baldwin presents his experiences and details in such a manner that does not lose its purpose or the reader’s attention. Much of the suggestions William Zinsser wrote about in On Writing Well is detectable in Baldwin’s writing, even though it might not be word for word. Regardless, Baldwin is able to successfully and effectively keep readers

The people‘s positions decide their thoughts and decisions.as old say, “If you love him/her, and sent him/her to U.S. because there is heaven; if you hate him/her, and sent him/her to U.S. because there is hell. Vicissitudes of life appear on Americans. Everyone needs to face his/her personal issues or trouble when he/she immigrant to U.S. In “Notes of a Native Son,” by James Baldwin and“Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee. When I compare both of them, two stories are true, and main characters are marginalize group in the U.S.

Baldwin uses the experiences he faced in New Jersey and the personal relationship with his father to show ethos throughout his essay. At one point in his essay, Baldwin finds himself in New Jersey where segregation still exist. “I learned in New Jersey…one was never looked at but was simply at the mercy of the reflexes the color of one’s skin caused in other people” (68). Here Baldwin expresses how circumstances in New Jersey were like at the time, but also portrays the way people were viewed based on the color of their skin. Baldwin later goes on to mention the year he spent in New Jersey, was the year in which “[he] first contracted some dread, chronic disease” (70). This “disease” Baldwin contracted is not an actual disease, but more of a way in which he begins to feel and see the world around him differently. The disease Baldwin is referring to throughout his entire essay is bitterness. Living in New Jersey caused Baldwin to gain the sense of bitterness that his father had lived with during his life. Baldwin’s bitterness comes from the way he was specifically treated in New Jersey and how he allowed that feeling to affect his behaviors. Baldwin specifically mentions the moment in New Jersey where the white waitress approaches him at the restaurant stating, “We don’t serve Negroes here” (71). At this point we begin to see Baldwin as he acts out in violence by stating, “I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck

It takes him his whole life to grasp the fact that his father was connected to him in many ways. Baldwin’s closest connection to his father was the amount of rage both of them shared regarding many aspects of life.

James Baldwin noticed that French intellectual life was not generally the concern of American blacks and also noticed that Paris attracted artists, several black writers and jazz musicians. On the first day James Baldwin ever set foot in Paris, Themistocles Hoetis, the founding editor of Zero magazine was sitting next to Richard Wright.  They later became friends and Baldwin called him “ the best African American writer in the world.” James Baldwin wrote the book “ Notes of a Native Son” which rooted from Richard Wright’s book “ Native Son.” In the third section “ A Severe Cross,” James Baldwin said he will always consider himself as greatly privileged. Baldwin was present at the first attempt to desegregate Southern schools, but he was only there to do his job, an honest job of reporting. As Baldwin reflected on the 9 years he spent in Europe he noticed that the America he left behind had changed. Baldwin’s first stop was Charlotte, NC, where he gathered up material for his essay “  Fly in the Buttermilk.” When he flew from Charlotte, NC to Atlanta he met Martin Luther King Jr. From then on he went to Birmingham then Montgomery, where he decided to investigate a town his first night there.

James Baldwin is well known for exploration on racial and social issues in his literary works. Baldwin was not a typical Civil Rights activist. He did not march or protest, but was a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement. Baldwin’s short story. “Going to Meet the Man”, was published in the early 1960s when racial tensions were still very high. He tells the story through the eyes of a white racist cop. This short story relates to the Civil Rights movement because of the hatred that Jesse has for the “black stinking coons” in his town. “It is evident from the story and the historical period in which the story takes place that Jesse has grown up in an extremely racist society. It can be assumed that he experienced elements of racism and prejudice on a daily basis from the attitude that his father expresses toward the black race as a whole throughout the story.” (Jeremy, Para. 10). This story brings to light what was happening all around America at this time. James Baldwin manages to climb inside the mind of a corrupt, racist Southern police officer and tell the story of how this man came to hate.

James Baldwin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations is a collection of the best and the last interview before his death. Within the pages of this manuscript, that marks the contents of this book, you find the provisional skill of one who has “mastered the English language.” These four interviews and conversations highlight the mind of a man that handled lived in an existential reality that many would label chaotic. It is in the midst of these pages where an intimate Baldwin, dying of cancer, continues to relate the message of hope in the midst of black rage. This black rage that leads Baldwin to unleash pearls of insight that connects blackness with maltreatment.

baldwin couldnt relate to anything his father felt until he experienced the harsh descrimination himself. for example, refused to being served at a public diner and humiliated infront of everyone. Also for the fact that his fathers funeral was so lonely, dark and quiet, it sybolized how his father

Although Baldwin and Allison go through similar struggles, the ways they attempt to overcome their circumstances are divergent due to their physically polar appearances. Baldwin is a black man, second generation of free men, and a Allison is a white woman who is poor and also homosexual. However, because of Baldwin’s skin color, society views him a target, and is not given many options when it comes to dealing with racism because unlike Allison he cannot escape from being dismissed as the “they”. Although Baldwin tries to change his identity, no matter what he does he will end up just like his enraged father. In the essay “Notes of a Native Son”, unlike his father, Baldwin demands equality from white people.

The white world had shut the door on him and he finally conceded the burden of being black. Baldwin affirms, "I had discovered the weight of the white people in the world" (222). Baldwin realized that his father was not trying to pass along his racist beliefs. He was simply trying to save them from the agonizing conduct of the whites towards them. He found the reason behind the bitterness in his father. Baldwin also became aware that the bitterness, which he had once hated in his father, was now a part of him "The bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me" (222). Baldwin did not want live a lonely life; the fear of becoming, what his father once was, dwelled in Baldwin. He realized that he had to free himself of the bitterness, before the bitterness distanced him from his family (like it had, for his father).

Baldwin learns to appreciate how his father influenced his future, teaching him how to

Jame Baldwin describes his early life in his essay Notes of a Native Son, particularly depicting his relationship with his father and the impact it had on his later life as a black man living in racist America. Baldwin goes into great detail when describing his father and the sickness that clung to him, a sickness of the mind and later an illness that would aid in his death. Over the course of his three part narrative, this sickness resurfaces, as does notions of health, and Baldwin does an excellent job of interweaving the symbol in and out of his piece, eventually touching on the exact nature of the sickness.

Born in 1924, James Baldwin grew up in Harlem during harsh racism and the infamous Jim Crow laws. In addition to being surrounded by hate crimes and riots, Baldwin had a rough relationship with his father, who died when Baldwin was only nineteen. Twelve years after his father?s death, Baldwin wrote an essay, entitled ?Notes of a Native Son,? which described the events that took place around the time of his father?s death. Being one of his trademark talents, he also inserted periods of analysis while narrating the story. These insights, often reflections on his life and actions, illustrate the importance of learning to truly understand the society in which one lives in order to react