James Baldwin's Notes Of A Native Son

James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son" demonstrates his complex and unique relationship with his father. Baldwin's relationship with his father is very similar to most father-son relationships but the effect of racial discrimination on the lives of both, (the father and the son) makes it distinctive. At the outset, Baldwin accepts the fact that his father was only trying to look out for him, but deep down, he cannot help but feel that his father was imposing his thoughts and experiences on him. Baldwin's depiction of his relationship with his father while he was alive is full of loathing and detest for him and his ideologies, but as he matures, he discovers his father in himself. His father's hatred in relation to the white American

James Baldwin is known to be one of the best essay writers in the twentieth century who wrote on a few topics including race, discrimination, sexuality and most of all his personal experiences. In “Notes of a Native Son”, he uses two main strategies to get his point across. First, he likes to tell a story in a narrative view. Following is normally his analysis of the event. He describes the event and then gives his theory on the matter. By doing this, he grants the reader a chance to decipher the meaning. His interpretation may not be what the reader’s is. He likes to argue and provides the basis for his argument in “Notes of a Native Son”. Throughout the essay he talks about himself and his father,

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

The idea of relating public and private events in Baldwin’s own experiences is instituted later in the essay in order to transition from narrative to analysis. Baldwin started telling a story about when he lived in New Jersey before the time of his father’s death. He talked about his personal treatment by white people in the south, a first hand account of the racism of that particular era. He learned of the hostility of the Jim Crow Laws inflicted on African Americans during that time period. His story was analogous to nearly all African Americans at that point. When Baldwin lived in New Jersey, he became exposed to the racism of the south that occurred in restaurants and diners. During one of those experiences he wrote, “I

The events in life are ways of growth and development in a person’s life, family or a society. Over time, humans will know the mental, physical and spiritual changes as a result of experiences. These changes can make some broad similarities in life or make a difference to develop independence and make a lifestyle. In these essays: "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin and "Three Spheres" by Lauren Slater are essays that give examples of events that are similar and different in characteristics that can occur in a person’s life in the growth stage.

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

In Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin, Baldwin uses various stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies such as personification, and metaphors. Baldwin first uses personification in order to describe his father's death. In this, Baldwin state's “Death, however, sat as purposefully at my father's bedside as life stirred within my mother's womb.” Baldwin uses this personification of death in order to show how death consumed his father, becoming a stronger person than his father was during his demise. Furthermore, this can be seen as irony, as while Baldwin's father lay dying, new life was coming about, relating to a larger theme of death leading into new life. Further personification can be seen when Baldwin states that “There is not a Negro alive who does not have rage in his blood.” Through the personification of rage, it can be seen that like death, rage can overpower one’s mentality, creating a strength equal to, or more than that of a human. Baldwin also uses the metaphor of hatred being a chronic disease as it describes how deadly hatred can be, to the point of one's life being filled and ended with rage inside their body. Together, these stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies work together to affect the overall tone and meaning of the work as they display how despair and hatred must be fought in one's heart, for one to achieve acceptance, and equal power. Overall, these stylistic choices affect the audience’s reactions as they are able to identify the tone of

Another Country and Go Tell it on the Mountain are two of James Baldwin's most analyzed novels. Some see both novels as great additions to American literature, while others criticize Baldwin's unique writing style used in both works.

Notes of a Native Son, a widely acclaimed and celebrated book by James Baldwin was subjected to many reviews upon its first publication. There were many opposing views between reviewers but almost all came to the conclusion that Baldwin’s use of words was extremely eloquent and intelligent. Specifically an article titled “Rage unto Order” by Dachine Rainer was very adamant about Baldwin’s genius as a writer but hardly did anything to explain or exemplify that fact. Another review written by Langston Hughes reflects upon how Baldwin clings to the issue of racial discrimination on Negroes and that if he let go of that fact it would prove him to be a greater writer. In the third article the author tries to

Have you ever pondered why individuals crave the fear and adrenaline in committing a crime? Or how individuals get so frightened by the thought of crime? As I came across multiple quotes this is the one that stuck out the most: “The world is filled with violence. Because Criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.” -James Earl Jones. Those problems occurred in the book Native Son, where the main character, Bigger, is faced with many crimes he created for himself. Bigger robbed many businesses within his neighborhood as well as killing two human beings. As a citizen, he committed many crimes throughout his community, craving the excitement in immorality. The quote mentions guns and how criminals carry concealed weapons, which reflects back to Bigger. As a character in a book, he represents individuals in our society today by carrying around a gun as a safety mechanism. The book showed Bigger never had a good home life, was highly uneducated and had a very low income. All of those issues caused him to commit a variety of crimes to receive what he desperately needed in life. Bigger represents the whole community of zealous criminals. As someone with needs and wants, not achieving what is needed, one will go without hard work and dedication to steal someone else’s values to get by. Such as Bigger did in Native Son. At the same time, the Dalton’s, which is the family Bigger worked

and get a drink of water and then drive the car out of the garage.

Some of the events in this book I found emotionally painful to read, even though it is a great learning experience for me. I hated him so much I reckoned how could he throw away his last opportunity in life, I hated his character so much, yes Bigger Thomas a big fool I reckoned to myself after reading the first chapter I became disgusted with his character for murdering a white girl. Pause, wait I said to myself is this book really about Bigger Thomas killing a white girl or the book is about to shred reality of race relations in this nation and the exploitation and abuse of African American. By now I really have a deeper meaning of the book. At the end of the book I realized that “Native Son” is a reflection of how the pressure and racism of American cultural environment affects black people, their emotions and self-image. Reading the novel makes me realized that oppression can lead one to do many unpleasant act or situation has bigger said ‘’everywhere that he went always felt he would come to a violent end, that something like this would happen to him, as often when there is no source of income to survive”, like Bigger any black men can relates to this situation most often when there is no source of income to survive violence and crime is often the instinctive reaction to oppression.

In Native Son, Wright suggests man instinctively oppresses other beings in order to satisfy his own desires. This instinctive oppression manifests itself through white-black and black-animal interactions. Jan instinctively oppress Bigger, meanwhile Bigger and his family instinctively oppress rats.

For centuries, white Europeans and Americans have mostly been the dominant race, and white influence can be seen imposed in many different places. In A Small Place by Jamaica Kinkaid, Kinkaid talks about a hypothetical vacation to Antigua where the author narrates the activities and thoughts of the reader when traveling through the country. In James Baldwin’s piece “From Notes of a Native Son”, he gives an autobiography describing his relationship with his father and living as a black man in the Harlem. In their experiences, they both have a mutual hatred towards white people because they were the dominating oppressive force in their lives, and their mutual goal is to back against this oppressive force to achieve and break free past their own societal standards. Although each writer proposes different strategies to avoid the same fate, they both have the same driving force to pursue social justice for their culture, and they both want to disprove that they are what they were once destined to be – to fall under the fate by social reproduction reinforced by white oppressors.