If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin and John Steinbeck's Novel The Grapes of Wrath

Thoughts are like seeds that take root in our minds. They spawn feelings and more thoughts that can have powerful consequences. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the views of the townspeople in the 1930’s Southern town of Maycomb greatly impact the lives of two innocent men. The people make false accusations against Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley because they are different. These characters are representative of the author’s reoccurring symbol of the mockingbird, which signifies innocence, and subjects them to vulnerability. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, although innocent, fall victim to the hatred of society and thus emerge as mockingbirds. Tom Robinson, is black man, who is wrongfully

Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again” is a poem that could be endlessly applied to where America stands today. This poem illustrates the morals, ideas, and visions set forth by those who found this country and how America has begun straying from those principles. The poem expresses that America is made up of all walks of people and that no man should be crushed by those above him, but rather be given the same opportunity as those above him. Hughes desire to make America great again can be shared in some way or another by most Americans making this poem everlasting. “Let America Be America Again” has the personalization, the language, the connection shared by every American, and the rhyme to allow readers of every race, gender, or religious belief to be brought together as not only people but as Americans.

The class system is a prevalent form of oppression in both The Street by Ann Petry and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the characters aspire to change their lives. Lutie Johnson is a black woman trapped in the cycle of poverty with her son living in Harlem during the 1940s and Gatsby is a man of new money who attempts to woo his past lover, Daisy in the 1920s. Prejudice against people from a different class leads to classicism being one of the main themes of these texts. Classism is able to control society because it is based on the acquisition and owning of money. Social mobility is the movement of people through the social system and their ability to change class or rank in society. The attempts of Lutie and Gatsby to improve their social stations illustrate the rigidity of class organization throughout the early to mid-1900s. This is emphasized in the narrative of each protagonist, their motivations and end goals, and the narrative styles.

The American Dream is often one of the most well-known benefits of living in America. It is the push factor that has driven millions of foreigners to flock to the so-called land of opportunity. Originally, the American Dream was established by a clause in the Declaration of Independence. It reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence par. 2). The original American Dream, as laid out by the founding fathers, was freedom from religious persecution and the right to live a happy life. That simple idea has undergone a significant metamorphosis and now the American Dream is much more complex. It has turned into a deep avaricious dream. This transformation has been noted in contemporary literature, especially in the novels Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. These pieces of literature can be read as a larger commentary on the mutation of the American Dream and how it is now more of a negative desire for greed and material. Both Fitzgerald and Alexie surmise that the American Dream has been twisted and corrupted into an uncontrolled desire that has become unattainable for many and that the pursuit of the dream has become dangerous.

In If Beale Street Could Talk and “Sonny’s Blues,” author James Baldwin shows that embracing suffering, rather than being trapped by it, leads to growth and enlightenment.

The roaring 20’s was an astounding time in the history of the United States of America. Many authors published novels, poems, and other works of literature to show their readers what it would be like to experience this time frame. Some examples of these works include The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. Both of these pieces of literature include literary elements to appeal to the reader’s senses and imagination. A prevalent theme that has been found in works of the roaring 20’s is the wealth that someone may or may not achieve. Literary elements such as figurative language, irony, and symbolism are profound in both The Great Gatsby and “Harlem”, adding depth to both literature works.

To prove a truth that lies within the underbellies of society, requires the skill of observation, precision, and the ability to make the previously unknown blatantly obvious. James Baldwin employs all these tactics in If Beale Street Could Talk in order to reveal the social injustice faced within America due to long withstanding social prejudices, fear, and corruption through the adventures of Tish and Fonny, where Fonny has been falsely accused of rape and Tish is pregnant.. To accomplish this immense task that lies ahead of him, Baldwin writes in an first person omniscient point of view which allows insight into a broader spectrum of society in order to support a single argument, creates foil characters in order to explore the complexity of the system from either extreme, and employs a syntax of mostly short simple sentences to explain the thought logically and precisely.

Throughout If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin the main characters have to overcome the challenges of racism, and the traits that go hand and hand with it, justice and prejudice, to realize what they actually needed was the family love they already had. Even though there are many romantic and even some graphic passages in the book, Baldwin mainly focuses on how they had to come together as a family when Alonzo (Fonny) was in jail and awaiting trial. If Beale Street Could Talk is essentially a story about the human capacity to love.

If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin, is a story about a man who has been falsely accused of a crime, simply because he does as doesn’t conform to the white society’s expectations of him. As Hans F. Hanson says, “It takes nothing to join the crowd. It takes everything to stand alone.” By putting Fonny, one of the story’s main protagonists, in the position where he has to defy the expected standards of society, Baldwin is able to achieve his purpose of creating an honest but brutal story that displays his character’s courage to not accept life’s circumstances and “join the crowd,” and instead carve his own path for his life, which results in many troubles that Fonny is forced to endure as he gives everything he has

Baldwin’s book could have been written today and the themes that he talked about in his book could have still applied to modern day life. Minorities are still placed in prison for unjust reasons and families struggle to get their loved ones out of the jail. It’s painful, because the system is designed to get them there, and money is required to save them by paying lawyers and bondspeople. The entire process is extremely painful and totally unfair to people like Tish. That’s what Baldwin’s book explores.

The beginning of the Civil Rights Movement era corresponds with the time that Harper Lee was writing about Scout Finch and her brother Jem. They live in the very state that events like the Montgomery Bus boycott would take place. The fictional town of Maycomb is in Alabama, the same state where Martin Luther King Jr. would rise to be the voice of African Americans aching for equality. The actual movement may have started in 1960 but that is the same year that To Kill a Mockingbird was published and huge events were rupturing the south, throughout the novel readers can see the attitude of a want and need for equality in characters and some events.

Another Country is a fiction book written by James Baldwin in 1962. James Baldwin was an essayist, playwright, and novelist with many popular writings. He is an iconic African American for his writings during the Civil Rights era in the United States focusing on racial and social issues. In Another Country, Baldwin’s characters go through interracial, homosexual, bisexual, and violent relationships. The main character, Rufus Scott, is an African American jazz drummer that commits suicide after the pressures of exploring his sexuality and race. He realizes he feels racial and masculine power when he has sexual encounters with white people due to the Civil Right era where as a black man he has no power. His friends and sister throughout the book feel guilty and try to unveil the reasons Rufus committed suicide, causing them themselves to explore their sexuality and identifying themselves within their race.

If Beale street could talk takes you on a long emotional roller coaster about what its like to be black in America where the justice system doesn’t seem to be for us. James Baldwin addresses social injustice and how it affects us and the people around us. Through his writing he shares a story about a young woman and man who use their love for one another to get them through a hardship or might I say just one of the many problems within the black community. James Baldwin captures your attention by focusing on an issue that has been going on for years that many of us may or have not experienced before but we sure have witnessed someone go through it. With the way he uses his characters, helps us visualize the setting, gives insight on social injustice, and presents how powerful love can be ,we can see how every element is relevant leading up to the plot.

Imagine a time when the aristocracy controls a poor man’s life. Every second he lives with the risk of an upper class member deciding whether or not to change his life for better or worse because they believe he is less than human. Although America in the nineteen twenties and thirties was known as the land of opportunity and the home of the American Dream; authors John Steinbeck and Scott Fitzgerald express different opinions in their novels, The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby, respectively. Each author uses the characterization of the wealthy classes to condemn the American Dream and show how people of this time portrayed by fictional characters were dehumanized. Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath portrays dehumanization through landlords and government officials, who are seen persistently harassing the Joad family, the main characters of the novel, and making their quest of survival near impossible. On the other hand, Fitzgerald, through the use of characterization, reveals the upper class citizens to be the source of all problems for the middle and lower classes. Gatsby, whom the book is named after, surprisingly only receives a small part of the blame more generously bestowed upon Tom Buchanan and his unloving wife Daisy. Nick, the narrator, is seen in a constant struggle of whether to lose his humanity and become one of these rich apathetic “monsters”, his goal in the beginning of his journey, or to keep his humanity but give up on his dream. Therefore, both

The stories that I select for my analysis are "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes and "The story of An Hours" by Kate Chopin.