Baldwin's Father in Notes of a Native Son Essay

In “Notes of a Native Son”, James Baldwin exceptionally conveys the burdens associated with being African American in New Jersey after the departure of his father. The relationship of father and son was negatively impacted by racial discrimination. Baldwin, for example, resisted frequent interactions with his father due to his hatred of the White American Society. However, after the loss of the father, Baldwin explored locations where a waitress denied him service due to the color of his skin, forcing him to convey his exasperation by throwing water on her. Consequently, sparking the same hatred he once despised in his father. As Baldwin matured, he was able to comprehend that his father's spiteful behavior sprung from the limitations blacks

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.

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).

Here Baldwin connected the death and violence of the civil rights riots and his father’s death, to the destruction of pride in his father and himself. Baldwin admitted throughout the essay that he had hatred for his father. The ideas of hatred and apocalypse are repeated in this paragraph. The repetition of these evil words showed the relationship between the end of two worlds that affected Baldwin. Baldwin felt that his father left him with the world around him crumbling and his own world as well. Baldwin used the central idea of death to tie together the two ideas of the riots and his father’s death.

“Sonny’s Blues” is a narration about two siblings – brothers - who choose very different routes in life in order to accomplish the zenith of individualism, expressionism and recognition. In doing so, they take a glimpse into one another’s spheres and learn to assent and appreciate each other for who they are. In 1951, Baldwin wrote Sonny’s Blues, a story of the ills that Harlem provided its youth. In Baldwin’s telling of the narration, it forms a nous of liberation, an atmosphere of therapeutic acceptance for the author, in which Baldwin develops to express his own state through his virtuoso of storytelling. To put it inanely, Baldwin has such a fine grasp of the linguistic and such great urge to interpret that he can move even his stoutest detractors to emotion and response.

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.

“Notes of a Native Son” is a narrative of Baldwin’s life. It is mainly about his relationship with his father and how after his father passed away he realized how his anger and rage, which was depicted as a disease, was

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

In the short story “Black Men in Public Spaces” by Brent Staples, Brent explains his life of being an unknown black man in a public space. Brent focuses his passage on the negativity he receives from the other ethnic groups. He illuminates their reactions of anger and fear. In the short story “Strangers in The Village” by James Baldwin, Baldwin explains his amusing emotion to the prejudice comments that are being made about him. Baldwin’s emotions were positive and humorous. Though both authors encounter prejudice actions and comments about their race, their responses to the situations were different.

For the sake of letting children stay innocent from the harsh treatments of the world for as long as possible, adults don’t speak of theses realities in the presence of children. Baldwin constructs a

James Baldwin was one of America’s foremost writers who grew up in a house hold in Harlem with a preacher father whose hatred of white people distorted his personality. James Baldwin was one man who saw the damages that hatred could have and with the help of a schoolteacher who later became a counselor, Baldwin had found it difficult to hate white people or any people. His works in fiction, drama, and essays were focused on problems involving racism and how it would harm both individuals and the nation. As the civil rights movement guaranteed basic rights to those who were African American throughout the nation had only just began and James Baldwin had been angered by the way African Americans were struggling everywhere. Later, Mr. Baldwin

One predominate, yet easily masked disease that constantly preys upon our society is racism. The question that ignited my curiosity was; is racism environmental factors based on one 's location or authority? Are we product of our environment? Who do we blame? What do we do? Such ideas as to racism and hatred constantly lurks around and ultimately destroys a community and a community 's sense of safety. One can easily believe the purpose of James Baldwin and his letter Notes of a Native Son was about a father and his son 's troubled relationship. But unfortunately, that concept barely scratches the surface. The deep, complex, and underlying purpose of Baldwin 's letter was to demonstrate how such a disease such as racism can be the cause of the decay of humanity of how people 's emotions and respect for each other are dwindling and ultimately how his son must grapple with such a concept and ultimately live with it. As well, in your letter, Letter to My Son, you addressed to your son the racism, cruelty, brutality, and injustice African Americans encountered and endured. By reading both of Baldwin 's letter and your letter, you both described very own personal experiences rather than another person 's account. You both truly gave your audience a view through your minds and enlightened them to the disease of racism.

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.

James Baldwin greatly outlines the developing issue of racism and oppression in the United States, and his relationship with his father in his essay, Notes of a Native Son. Baldwin’s essay gives reader a glance inside his life, during the early 1940’s. After reading Notes of a Native son, I learned that it is important to completely understand the society which you live in, to appropriately react to certain situations in your life. It wasn’t until the end of the essay that Baldwin began to understand his surroundings and react accordingly. When I was first introduced to racism as a young child, like Baldwin’s father, I instantly developed an uneasy feeling towards Caucasians.

In Baldwin’s early life, he had to work hard and support his family. Born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York, James Baldwin was born as the oldest child out of eight siblings (“About the Author”). All of his siblings were step brothers and sisters (Tackach). Baldwin helped raise his siblings for his mother, Emma Berdis Jones and his stepfather, David Baldwin. James did not know his biological father because his mother would not say anything related about his father. David Baldwin was a very harsh and religious stepfather to James (“About the Author”). His stepfather would verbally abuse him and call James an ugly child (“James Baldwin”). Even though his home life was not so good, James had a good education and attended Frederick Douglass Junior High School for the first two years of high school (Tackach). Then, he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in Bronx, New York for the next two years (“James Baldwin”). During his years of high school, he became a preacher at church from the ages of fourteen to eighteen (“About the