Identity struggle †The narrow and broad path in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain Essay

jam Baldwins bearing was cryptically pronounced by an identity struggle. A struggle to find ejaculate in what it meant to be an Ameri evoke and foremost what it meant to be an Afro American. Like in other whole caboodle he besides deals with this topic in his first allegory Go announce It on the cumulus, where posterior Grimes confronts this problem on his fourteenth natal day. The futurity(a) paper will thusly adjudge a look at the possibilities p alonetocksed to the Afro American com scrape upler addresss in the story, especi all(prenominal)y to jakes, and what role the per constellation plays in this context. nonwithstanding it will out boundary washstand Grimes situation between a ghostly up-bringing in indigence and the longing for a smash financial animateness by adopting bloodless rooms. Finally it will try to elaborate on the basis of two get word scenes whether tail ends decision is found on faith or hopelessness.II. Imposed roles Afro America ns in a dominantly washrag beau mondeFrom the very(prenominal) beginning of the falsehood the possibilities of Afro Americans in American conjunction atomic number 18 depicted as very remote, especially in john Grimes case Every sensation had ever said that conjuring trick would be a pr separatelyer man when he grew up, just a handle(p) his render. . His entire life and all the batch in it atomic number 18 set in a religious environs, block up out any word form of laic influence. As a national of f flake no other future option for him is ever menti geniusd in the overbold. At some range though his teachers nonice that he is very intelligent Youre a very bright boy, nates Grimes cargo ara up the good work. .His parents dont fitm to be alert of this or dont consider this to be of importance for his future perspectives. This hopelessness can be traced throughout each graphic symbols life in the novel.Those who do not accept their role enforce to them by ho stelry tend to fail in life. For example auntie Florence who sets out North in roam to achieve a senior higher(prenominal) living standard, scarcely ends up alone after driving her economise away from her due to her ambition to gain a higher brotherly standard. Further, Johns real tiro Richard is crushed by the detriment against disconsolate men in a dominantly unobjectionable society and because commits suicide. Hence, John and the following generations are taught to accept the place settings and their status in American society. In order to cope with this they are advised to introduce a highly religious life and to shut out all secular elements. It is this aspect that Baldwin criticizes mostly.He blames the baleful mickle for judge the apologue of knowledge base inferior to white masses without a struggle . besides he accuses them of copying white ways and replacing their own African traditions . Aunt Florence even up takes a step upgrade in the novel by t rying to bleach her skin with beauty products, hereby rejecting her black skin and thus her heritage. At the same time he blames the Anglo-American society for depriving black people of all freedom and cause to direct their own lives . This identity struggle is clearly visible in Johns case and will be discussed in detail in chapter trio.2.1. total darkness church service as a helpful companion or a mere distraction from reality?Since the current story evolving around John primarily takes vex in a church and deals with his conversion it is key to take a proximate look at the role of blackness Christianity and the Black church. The Temple of the Fire call, family Grimes church, is presented to the reader as a place of redemption and as a shelter from all the sin in the knowledge base. John is confronted with this supposedly sin on his way to church each Sunday in the form of men and women coming home from proscribe and cat kinsfolks . The constant thr kills of damnat ion and hell itself, which Macebuh states as being subprogram of the Black Christianity, as well appear throughout the entire novel. Due to the ageless warnings of temptations and sin by his parents and the church community, John lives in abiding charge of graven images wrath, even in harmless places such as the moviesHe waited for the darkness to be shattered by the light of the mho coming, for the ceiling to crack upward, revealing, for every eye to let out, the chariots of fire on which desc finish a wroth divinity and all the host of Heaven.In return for refuge and brotherhood, the members are curtailed freedom and have to renounce all worldly pleasures. especially this aspect of religion is irreproducible for John and even more for Roy, who openly criticizes his paternity for forcing them to obeyYeah we dont know how aureate we is to have a pop off what dont call for you to go to movies, and dont want you to play in the streets, and dont want you to have no fri ends, and he dont want this and he dont want that, and he dont want you to do nothing. We so lucky to have a contract who just wants us to go to church and read the Bible .In the novel the church primarily seems to be a place of blow for those in sorrow, such as Aunt Florence. She intends having gone to church solo once since she moved to the North and her visit to the Temple of the FireBaptized now is due to her cancer and fear of death. So it seems that people descriptor of turn to immortal out of despair than out of strong intuitive feeling. This precondition is also enforced by an ironic observation the narrator makes concerning the characters habits of church goingTarry service officially began at eight, provided it could begin at any time, whe neer the Lord moved one of the saints to enter the church and pray. It was seldom, however, that anyone arrived before eight thirty, the Spirit of the Lord being sufficiently tolerant to allow the saints time to do their Saturd ay-night shopping, clean their houses, and put their children to bed.Especially the boyisher people do not seem to go to church voluntarily to help out, leaving John usually alone to clean up the Temple, unless Elisha shows up to give him a lapse Lord, baby McCandless, he said, look comparable it aint never but us two. I dont know what the other young folks does on Saturday nights, but they dont come nowhere near here. . Ironically, while Elisha claims this, John thinks to himself that not even Elisha shows up often on Saturdays.All these passing plays show that the so called saints in the novel do not go to church out of religious rea word of honors but because they are desperate and consider the church as a rallying destine around which they sought to lessen their pain by sharing in one anothers joys and plunk foring as Macebuh puts it . Peter Bruck interprets this similarly. He sees the blackness church as the lone(prenominal) available companionable berth for the bl ack society in history. save put away this genial work of activity does not help to change the inhuman conditions each character suffers and the prayers also do not improve their psychological and social circumstance . In this context, infracticularly in chapter two, The Prayers of the Saints, the reader gets an idea of what the prayer of each member consists.During mass all of them reflect on their historical and conceive their sins, but they do not pray out of their love for God but out of fear that He might make them suffer his wrath, since He is not the compassionate God of the new-sprung(prenominal) Testament . Colin MacInnes goes even further in his essay by referring to religion as a fierce and constant compulsion that never abandons them the characters a second . study states that religion means refuge from the terrors of everyday life and God thitherfore represents base hit God and safety became synonymous, and the church, a break down of his selection outline. However, the price for this safety is renouncement of personal provide of ones sex and social power of ones people . overall Bone reckons that the church offers either the driveway of self-hatred or the grade of self-acceptance, with Christ as a kind of spiritual bleaching cream. In this anatomical structure the Negro masses function as a ritual word picture of their daily pain .Edward Margolies depicts the Negro Church as a kind of community newspaper which links the new immigrants to their Southern past and functions as an output for their rage, terror and frustrations . In addition to all the authors here mentioned, Margolies expands the churchs functions upon the field of masculine identity. The church exemplifies by means of the wrathful Old Testament God a masculine role model many Negro adolescences lack in their family environment . This can also be applied to Johns case. Rejected by his tyro, or as the reader knows, his stepfather, he feels unloved and ugly. On the one hand he despises God, since he sees his father as Gods subgenus Pastor . On the other hand though, he longs to be saved and kick the bucket Gods son, who would then protect him accordingly he would no longer be the son of his father, but the son of his Heavenly make, the King. Then he need no longer fear his father, for he could take, as it were, their quarrel over his fathers head to Heaven to the Father who loved him, who had come down in the flesh to die for him.This passage clearly shows that the church provides John with some kind of psychic recompense for the love his father deprives him of and that he sees in God an ally against his father. This would change by reversal redundant if he were to find out that Gabriel is not his real father and that he has also sinned in his past life, namely in the form of his unclaimed firstborn son with Esther . As for Elisha, who also tries to bring him enveloping(prenominal) to God, John sees in him a brotherly and fatherly figure he looks up to, but he also feels attracted to him in sexual ways. Elisha in some way represents the earthly protection and guidance John needs in order to find his identity.He is also the one who shows him another side of God and religion. Instead of the wrathful God his father preaches him, Elisha speaks of a caring and grace one who protects and saves . In general, the church is depicted as a kind of sanctuary for the characters, just as it was for crowd together Baldwin himself. The black Church offered him in a similar way shelter and refuge from the terrors of the streets . Overall, true belief is disregarded in contrast to safety which now stands for Christianity.III. In assay of identity Between secularization and clericalizationGiven the background so c doddering John Grimes is trapped between the clerical life his parents force unto him and the secular life that awaits him outside his home on the streets. The title of the novel, the first line of a Negro spiritual, re fers to the good news of Jesus Christs existence. Additionally, the first chapter that introduces the reader to the characters is called The seventh day, a clear theatrical role to the creation story of Genesis . Both function as allusions to scriptural constructions. In a figurative sense, Johns fourteenth birthday can therefore be seen as a creative process, which label his finding of self-identity, as well in religious terms as in worldly or sexual terms. The following chapters will take a closer look at two passages where John faces different travel guidebooks concerning his identity, one characterized by a more material and white world and another checking to a strictly religious life.3.1. Johns getaway to Manhattan Denial of his black heritage?On his fourteenth birthday John uses the money his mother gives him to buy a metro peak and drive down to Manhattan. As mentioned before John feels attracted to the shining and effervescent world of white men and is not so much arouse in his people . He cares more about what the white people think of him and feels very proud when they notice his intelligence in trail . This intelligence symbolizes for him a special power the others do not induce and which he hopes will bring him the love he lacks Perhaps, with this power he might one day win that love which he so longed for. . For John the white world represents power and success . Thus, once he arrives at Central set and reaches the top of the hill, he feels as if he could counter the entire cityHe did not know why, but there arose in him an exultation and a sense of power, and he ran up the hill alike(p) an engine, or a madman, willing to throw himself headlong into the city that glowed before him Then he, John, felt like a jumbo who might crumble this city with his anger he felt like a tyrant who might crush this city beneath his list he felt like a long-awaited conqueror at whose feet flowers would be strewn He would be, of all, the mightiest , the most beloved, the Lords anointed, and he would live in this shining city which his ancestors had seen with longing from further away.There alone on the top of the hill he dreams of being part of the city and be to the upper white class, which would accept him unconditionally. But as soon as he recalls the peoples reactions to him he is pulled back into reality He remembered the people he had seen in the city, whose eyes held no love for him and how when they passed they did not see him, or, if they saw him, they smirked. . Despite these incidents John still feels as part of the white social stratum due to his intelligence, but reality looks sooner different and resembles more his parents, especially his fathers warnings of the city and white men in general. As he walks along Central Park he keeps imagining what it would be like living in such an environment and being wealthy. The absence of God in this society is not a drawback for John, since he sees that the way of life according to the Lord has not sincerely helped his parents with their everyday strugglesIn the narrow way, the way of the cross, there awaited him solely humiliation forever there awaited him, one day, a house like his fathers house, and a church like his fathers, and a job like his fathers, where he would grow old and black with hunger and toil. The way of the cross had given him a swell filled with wind and had bent his mothers back they had never worn fine clothes, but here, where the grammatical constructions contested Gods power and where the men and women did not fear God, here he might eat and drink to his hearts content and clothe his body with marvelously fabrics .Despite the situation that he knows that their thoughts were not of God, and their way was not Gods way , he cannot believe how the white society, being so beautiful and gracious, could end up in hell. He himself had been assure of their capacity to do good when he was sick and one of his teachers had broug ht him medicine. Although John does not really know nevertheless who he is and where he belongs, at this point he does know that he never wants to end up like his father. Due to his young age and inexperience it is more likely that he feels attracted to the white society on the grounds of a wealthier future it seems to offer and not because he tries to deny his black heritage.His aversion to black people derives basically from the fact that his entire Negro environment characterizes itself by poverty and does not offer him a successful, strong or caring staminate role model. On the contrary, Johns self-hatred and accusation are a result of his fathers treatment. Hence, he tries to find an account for his fathers rejection in his own shortcomings, such as his liking to leave the ghetto or his intelligence which singles him out . Gabriels current criticism of Johns outward appearance leads to insecurity and self-distrustHis father had always said that his face was the face of Sat an and was there not something in the lift of the eyebrow, in the way his rough hairsbreadth formed a V on his brow that bore witness to his fathers words? In the eye there was a light that was not the light of Heaven, and the mouth trembled, lustful and lewd, to drink deep of the wines of Hell two great eyes, and a broad, low forehead, and the triangle of his nose, and his broad mouth, and the barely perceptible cleft in his chin, which was, his father said, the mark of the agitates little finger he most passionately craved to know whether his face was ugly or not.By contrast, the white society stands for success and seems to offer him all the possibilities his father deprives him of. Most of all John associates access to knowledge with white people. Next to the incident at school, which was mentioned introductory on page three, John feels both attracted and frightened by the national Library on 42nd Street. He believes loudnesss to be part of high culture and thus a whi te privilege. Scared he stands in front of the building not knowing how people would react to him if he dared to go insideHe loved this street, not for the people or the shops but for the stone lions that guarded the great main building of the worldly concern Library, a building filled with books and unimaginably vast, and which he had never yet dared to enter But he had never gone in because the building was so big that it must be full of corridors and marble steps, in the maze of which he would be lost and never find the book he wanted. And then everyone, all the white people inside, would know that he was not used to great buildings, or to many books, and they would look at him with kindness.This passage also shows that even though the big city fascinates John, it also seems to him as a kind of maze that terrifies him and brings back his fathers words of warning. Despite all these admonitions and the fact that John is aware of the Negro treatment and history in the United Stat es , he believes that his knowledge is the key to white acceptance. His getaway to Manhattan also leads him to Broadway, which he automatically associates with the broad class to Hell and damnation Broadway the way that led to death was broad, and many could be found thereon . Still he immediately dismisses this image and decides to see a movie on Sixth Avenue, where once again he is plagued by thoughts of God punishing him for this supposedly sin . Inspired by the main character of the movie, whom he admires for her strength and independency, John tries to figure out whether there is a third path in life John thought of Hell, of his souls redemption, and the struggle to find a agree between the way that led to life everlasting and the way that ended in the pit. But there was none .This trip to Manhattan signifies for John an beat from his fathers religious world and one step closer to the life he wishes to lead, one that is characterized by financial security and social status independent of his skin color. As mentioned before, this tendency in John can be ascribed to a longing for a mend life and not to an intended denial of his blackness. Still his desire to be part of the white society leads automatically to a negation of his ancestors past and hence to alienation from his own people. Therefore Johns sought after white identity is only a mock identity which would never work.The only way of finding his real identity is by evaluate his own heritage and history and consequently his own father . Moreover, by attending the movies he does not only carry out an act of social participation but also an act of defiance both against morality and religion, since he identifies with the white heroines attitude, who tells the world to kiss her ass . Ironically, in the end John remains in his secular idea as much a victim of his fears of God as those who are willing to accept Gods power . 3.2. Johns conversion True belief or a mere survival gimmick?The other pat h, the narrow one which is available for John, is the religious one his parents and his community offer him. Here the third chapter The Treshing Floor or kinda the conversion scene in this chapter can be taken as a good example. Even though John mentioned before that he did not long for the narrow way, where all his people walked , in chapter three he engages in an ecstatic conversion. Therefore this experience is questionable and quite a seems to be a flight from the quest for identity into the ostensible safety the black church offers . During his spiritual experience he encounters various obstacles, his father being the most difficult one. While John is lying in front of the altar he sees his father looking down on him without pity or love, but instead he keeps hearing him say Im going to beat sin out of him. Im going to beat it out .As mentioned before the only way to God is through his father and by admitting his sin. Like the son of Noah, he too had made fun of his fathers loneliness and was now cursed for it to the present just like Ham. By accepting this, namely that all niggers had come from this most undutiful of Noahs sons and that a curse was renewed from spot to moment, from father to son , he embraces his black heritage. Some critics, e.g. Csaba Csap, go even further by assuming that by doing so he also embraces his homosexuality, which comes to show in his relationship with Elisha . But this is altogether a different topic of the novel, which does not contribute to this essays occasion and will therefore not be discussed at this point. His ongoing excursion takes him into a grave, which symbolizes the past, isolation, death but also resurrection, where the collective singing and praying further strengthens his realization of his own history In this murmur that filled the grave he recognized a sound that he had always comprehend This sound had filled Johns life, so it now seemed, fromthe moment he had first drawn breath. He had heard it everywhere It was in his fathers anger, in his mothers calm insistence, and in the vehement mockery of his aunt Yes, he had heard it all his life, but it was only now that his ears were opened to this sound that came from darkness, that yet bore such sure witness to the glory of the light. And now in his moaning, and so far from any help, he heard it in himself.This experience creates an identity in John which no longer separates him from his black environment but rather strengthens the feeling of solidarity. Nevertheless, this identity-shaping does not change Johns relationship to his father the living word that could conquer the great division between his father and himself. But it did not come . Peter Bruck explains this situation with the fact that Johns experience does not signify relief from his damnation, but unless constitutes a momentary ease from the existing situation, similar to the Noah and Ham entanglement . This assumption is also supported by Gabriels comment a fter Johns conversion It comes from your mouth I want to see you live it. Its more than a notion. . He reminds John of the fact that his conversion is merely the first step and that he is still to be tested by the long, complex journey of life. This is also emphasized by the unchanged picture the saints face the dayspring after Johns conversion, which stands in contrast to the development he has undergoneYet the houses were there, as they had been the windows, like a thousand, blinded eyes, stared outward at the morning at the morning that was the same for them as the mornings of Johns innocence, and the mornings before his birth. The water ran in the gutters with a small, discontented sound on the water traveled paper, burned-out matches, sodden cigarette-ends gobs of spittle, green-yellow, brown, and pearly the leavings of a dog, the vomit of a sottish man, the dead sperm, trapped in rubber, of one abandoned to his lust.This passage clearly shows the constant burdens of life and the un alter reality awaiting John. The picture is characterized by radioactive decay and waste and thus depicts Johns hopeless situation in spite of his new found identity.As his father mentioned to him he is still endangered by his environment and his relationship to yonder has not improved at all. The people will still confront him with the same pity and hostility as before, calling him Frog-eyes and other names . Hence the church only offers a temporary place of refuge without really creating better options for the future. It only partially illuminates things and merely hides or damns others . But in the midst of all this pessimism there also exists a spark of hope for John. He has now found a new ally in Elisha who already helped him through his conversion and will keep on doing so in the future. Further, he has introduced John to the love of God, instead of the theological terror of the stupid God his father preaches . As Robert Bone also hints at, the church can functi on as a path of self-hatred or as a path of self-acceptance . The following lines point to a new start and ongoing journey lying ahead of JohnThe sun had come full awake. It was waking the streets, and the houses, and crying at the windows. It fell over Elisha like a golden robe, and struck Johns forehead, where Elisha had kissed him, like a seal ineffaceable forever.Again, this kiss and the rising sun can be interpret as Johns awakening homosexuality, which in the following whole kit and caboodle of Baldwin is also seen as a source of hope . The closing lines of the novel Im ready Im coming. Im on my way. impart an open ending to the story, leaving out which path John is going to take after all.IV. ConclusionThe ending of the novel leaves the reader wondering whether John has definitely chosen the narrow path he so long avoided, even despised. Only several hours before, he still dreamed of a wealthy life midst the white society, far away from his own people and poverty. The mome nt he realizes that this world was not for him and that they would never let him enter , as his father always kept preaching him, he turns to his only other option, the black church. Thus, it seems to be more a last desperate act to survive in the brutal streets of Harlem, than an act of religious belief. This step can also be found in crowd together Baldwins own biography. After having served as a preacher for several years, he left the black church unsatisfied and misunderstood, still searching for his own identity as an American, better as an Afro American. In exchange for sanctuary he had to give up his sexuality and entirely isolate himself from the outer world, which might get him into employment with the white power.This meant exchanging the personal power of ones sex and the social power of ones people in exchange for the power of the Word, in Baldwins eyes the historical betrayal of the Negro Church . A similar pattern of behavior can be find in John, who sees in religio n also a survival gimmick. Although during Johns religious ecstasy the reader might get the flavor that he is acting according to belief, his final words to Elisha on the way home evoke insecurity in this decision no subject area what happens to me, where I go, what folks say about me, no matter what anybody says, you remember I was saved. I was there. . It seems as though he knows that his conversion is not the finish line and yet another journey awaits him that may lead him away from the church, as it did crowd together Baldwin.V. BibliographyPrimrliteraturBaldwin, James Go give notice (of) It on the Mountain. New York Bantam Dell 1980.SekundrliteraturBone, Robert A. James Baldwin in Keneth Kinnamon James Baldwin. A Collection of life-sustaining Essays. New Jersey Prentice star sign 1974, p. 28-38.Bruck, Peter Von der store front church zum American Dream. James Baldwin und der amerikanische Rassenkonflikt. Amsterdam B. R. Grner 1975, p.24-36.Csap, Csaba Race, Religion and Sexuality in Go Tell It on the Mountain in Carol E. Henderson James Baldwins Go Tell It on the Mountain. Historical and Critical Essays. New York Peter Lang 2006, p.57-74.Fabre, Michel Fathers and Sons in James Baldwins Go Tell It on the Mountain in Keneth Kinnamon James Baldwin. A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey Prentice manor hall 1974, p.120-138.Jones, Beau Fly The Struggle for Identity in The British diary of Sociology, Vol. 17, No.2 (June 1966), p.107-121.Kent, George E. Baldwin and the Problem of Being in Therman B. ODaniel James Baldwin. A Critical Evaluation. London AD. Donker 1977, p.19-29.Macebuh, Stanley James Baldwin A critical Study. New York The Third nip Joseph Okpaku Publishing Company 1973, p.49-68.MacInnes, Colin Dark Angel The Writings of James Baldwin in Gibson, Donald B. Five Black Writers. New York New York University Press 1970, p.119-126.Margolies, Edward The Negro Church James Baldwin and the Christian Vision in Harold Bloom James Baldwin. New York Chelsea support Publishers 1986, p.59-76.Rosenblatt, Roger Out of Control Go Tell It on the Mountain and Another Country in Harold Bloom James Baldwin. New York Chelsea House Publishers 1986, p.77-90.Sylvander, Carolyn Wedin James Baldwin. New York Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1980, p.27-44.View as multi-pages