New York During The 1920's

The main thoughts of both essays in the book are explored and reflect and examinations Negro problems and the differences in races in that time. Also it reflects the relationships and inter-generational influences with the black people and with white people in America. Baldwin also explores the ineffectiveness of a religious faith and its futility. It is a personal perspective and his experience

Every young man struggles with his inner character. Choosing how he carries himself around others and even himself is a snapshot of how he will be as not only a husband but as a father. In “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin, he is conflicted with the problems of racism during the 1950’s, striving not to become the man his father was, and trying to figure out who he is as an individual. These things are what empowers him to write this essay. Baldwin’s conundrum is fueled the turmoil of self and living in a racist society throughout this story.

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

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,

On one hand James Baldwin is addressing his letter to his nephew, but on the other hand the text is also applicable to the entire black community who is oppressed by society; and to the whites who need to recognize the need for equality. Baldwin addresses the letter to the teenager, James, and additionally descriptively clarifies how this deadly situation applies to many dark-skinned men. Contrastingly, the novelist realizes how the privileged population will hear this message as well, which Baldwin makes clear when he metaphorically states, “I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, ‘No! This is not true! How bitter you are!’”(Baldwin

The text continues with Baldwin warning his nephew about the struggle he is going to endure for just being born black and nothing else. Also telling him that he must survive for his children and his children’s children. He warns him, telling him that this country will set him up for failure and that they will try to control where he could go, what he could do, and how he could do it. He continues to articulate that he must stay true to himself because no matter how much he tries to resemble white people they will never accept him. He later states how corrupt the white mind is, for example, he says, “They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for so many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they

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

Baldwin, however, describes his father as being a very black-like “African tribal chieftain” (64) who was proud of his heritage despite the chains it locked upon him. He is shown to be one with good intentions, but one who never achieved the positive outcome intended. His ultimate downfall was his paranoia such that “the disease of his mind allowed the disease of his body to destroy him” (66). Baldwin relates the story of a white teacher with good intentions and his father’s objection to her involvement in their lives because of his lack of trust for any white woman. His father’s paranoia even extended to Baldwin’s white high school friends. These friends, although they could be kind, “would do anything to keep a Negro down” (68), and they believed that the “best thing to do was to have as little to do with them as possible” (68). Thus, Baldwin leaves the reader with the image of his father as an unreasonable man who struggled to blockade white America from his life and the lives of his children to the greatest extent of his power. Baldwin then turns his story to focus on his own experience in the world his father loathed and on his realization that he was very much like his father.

Growing up in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s and 30’s, James Baldwin was a young Black man desperate for a place of acceptance. Surrounded by drugs and prostitution Baldwin saw a change in his neighborhood and his friends as they got older. With his friends beginning to drink and smoke Baldwin knew times were changing. He became very aware of the body development of the girls and the boys; and to his surprise he was even more enticed by the changes in the boys (Baldwin 17). During this time, Baldwin and his friends would begin to experience the racism that White America had to offer. No longer shielded by their age or naivety they had to face the fact that they were not accepted because of their skin color. With this realization, Baldwin would begin his search to be part of something bigger then him. During a similar time period, Abraham Maslow, a Psychologist and Professor at numerous universities over his career, including Brandeis and Columbia, published a theory called “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (Boeree). In this theory, Maslow describes the four most important needs for a human to be self actualized. The self actualized person is not one of perfection but one who is on a search to understand and discover why their life is the way it is, from why “their feet hurt” to if “they do not like eggplant”. They take responsibility for their actions and try to be honest people on their search to figuring out their purpose in life. Surrounded by hate and anger, Baldwin is

Throughout the entire essay, Baldwin uses his circumstances to make you feel sympathy towards him as an author. In one part of his works he tells the awful account of his father’s mental illness. When telling the audience what he had went through, at the age of 19, someone reading this, might say that brings them sympathy, while his tone in passages where he explains these sad expressions are unattached. He writes, “…In the morning the telegram came saying he was dead. Then the house was full of relatives, friends, hysteria, and confusion…” Here, he plainly states the facts of how his house was after his father’s death but does not describe how he feels about the people being in his house or the emotional toll his father’s death has taken on him. This is just one aspect of

New York in the 1920's: The time period of the 1920’s was widely known as an era of prosperity. It was also an era of contradictions for New York as a modern industrial city that, with engineering feats of such wonder, had conquered the sky and constructed a hidden network of underground power lines, sewer lines, and water lines. They also bridged the gap between the city's infrastructural capacity and its population then again widened. The city's roads did not keep up with the rapidly increasing popularity of the automobile.

In order to create the most power behind the topics he addresses, Baldwin harnesses the different perspectives ranging from childhood to adulthood, the time elements of present and past, and the complex internal and external conflicts. Throughout Baldwin’s masterpiece, he discusses the cultural adaptations of religion, sex, family, and violence in order to show society’s opinion of them and how moral values had been changed due to these assumptions. This has altered the perspectives of thousands of people and hosts an interesting story which in my experience is also quite

James Baldwin, an African American author born in Harlem, was raised by his violent step-father, David. His father was a lay preacher who hated whites and felt that all whites would be judged as they deserve by a vengeful God. Usually, the father's anger was directed toward his son through violence. Baldwin's history, in part, aids him in his insight of racism within the family. He understands that racists are not born, but rather racist attitudes and behaviors are learned in the early stages of childhood. Baldwin's Going to Meet the Man is a perfect example of his capability to analyze the growth of a innocent child to a racist.

New York during the 19th century was an essential dream for immigrants all over the world, yet most of them found not streets paved with opportunity as promised, but nearly subhuman filth and neglect. While the elitist society turned a blind eye, courageous reporters such as Jacob Riis detailed the indignity of the broken promise of the American Dream. Riis captured the crime, grinding poverty and alarming overcrowding. Famous of these photographs was Riis’ image of the Lower East Side street gang, which imparted the danger that loitered around every corner. This work became the basis of which galvanized the more privileged Americans to address what they had long disregarded as not problematic.

Maslow explains, without any exceptions, that these individuals listen to the impulse voices, allowing the self to emerge (44). Likewise, Baldwin is determined to follow his inner voice, even though his beliefs do not reflect those of the black American Christian church. He fled to the church in hopes it would become his “safe haven”; it would become a place with apparent safety from the dangerous streets he grew up on. Nevertheless, the church and what it stood for vanished, specifically when he felt no love in the church (39). He notices how few individuals were concerned with lifting those around them up; most individuals were keen to tear those around them down. Although he hoped to feel genuineness and humanity within the church, “…salvation stopped at the church door” (39). The idea of the church represented unity and acceptance, yet, as a young preacher and teenage Christian minister, Baldwin witnessed despair, hatred and self-hatred. This “mask” instilled in him a fear that affected his beliefs (39). Baldwin underwent metapathology, which Maslow exclaims as the sicknesses of the soul which come from living among liars all the time (43). The church was a façade. Baldwin had engulfed himself in the church, but he slowly began to distrust the church and what it stood for. When he was told that he should love everybody, Baldwin was unaware that the everybody referred to only those who believed as he did (40). A minister once