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Describe james baldwins writing
Describe james baldwins writing
Papers written on James Baldwin
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Thoughts of a Man
Life is a great tapestry of events and emotions that one feels and/or experiences on a daily basis. No day plays out the same way and no two people experience the same things. Certainly one can say that life is jumpy, if not completely unpredictable. In order to explain life or the things that go on in life, one must be able to communicate on not only a narrative level, but also an analytical level. Any great writer must possess the skill to fully and completely portray a feeling or idea. James Baldwin, an African-American writer born in Harlem in 1924, fully possessed this special ability. Baldwin is considered to be one of the best essayists of the twentieth century and wrote during a time of great racial injustice. One of his greatest assets was his uncanny ability to intertwine narrative and analysis throughout the course of his essays. In his famous essay, “Notes of a Native Son”, or “Notes” for short, Baldwin shows some of his best work in this style of writing. In “Notes,” Baldwin performs a masterful job of weaving analytical thought into specific events from his life or the public life around him. This style allows the reader to better understand the thoughts of a very intelligent, educated, and opinionated man who lived during a very difficult time in American history.
At first glance, “Notes” may seem to be a simple story about Baldwin’s father and the strained relationships that Baldwin and his siblings had with their father. But at a closer look, the essay serves a deeper purpose than initially expected, which can be seen in an analysis of Baldwin’s writing style. Baldwin uses a writing style that moves from story to analysis in order to paint a very specif...
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...eeded the guidance that sometimes only a father can give. This is an interesting idea and this tying up of loose ends is a powerful example of how Baldwin constructed and framed his essays. His style went from a specific example to a general feeling of some deeper meaning than the story or example alone could portray. The transitions from narrative to analysis that he used were logical and flowed well. As a reader, it was difficult to actually pick out the change without carefully reading and analyzing the essay as one reads it. This style, which really is more like a gift, paints a very vivid picture for the reader and places Baldwin among the best essayists of the twentieth century.
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York, New York, Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
James Baldwin is one of the premier essayists of his time. He draws on his experiences in a straightforward, unapologetic manner, which helps achieve his purpose in The Fire Next Time. His style elucidates his arguments for racial harmony and for the understanding of other religions.
When identifying the common theme of Baldwin’s short stories “Sonny’s Blues” and “Going to Meet the Man”, it is clever to first distinguish the writing style of this creative author. Baldwin was a famous writer of his period because of the way he interpreted reality into a story. Around this point in America, racial tension and self-identity between cultures were at a peak and sparked many different ideas towards Baldwin’s writings. Baldwin intentionally expresses himself through his writings to create a realistic voice to his audience, making the story easy to capture a visual of. In one story in particular, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” Baldwin creates a novel
“In 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy invited Baldwin and other prominent blacks to discuss the nation's racial situation” (Magill 103). The meeting only reminded Baldwin on how far the nation still had to come (Magill 103). Baldwin continued to write. “During the last 10 years of his life, he produced a number of important works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry” (PBS 4). For awhile he taught and lectured, but soon it became more and more difficult for him to write (Magill 103). The years of drinking, smoking and traveling finally took their toll (Magill 103). “In 1987, James developed stomach cancer, and it took his life at the age of 63 on December 1, in his home in France” (PBS 4). Being a successful black man in the 1900s shows how smart and gifted James Baldwin
The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new won “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights. They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Bill of Rights, which were made to protect the citizenship of the African-American, thereby granting him the protection that each American citizen gained in the Constitution, there were no means to enforce these civil rights. People found ways to go around them, and thus took away the rights of African-Americans. In 1919, racial tensions between the black and white communities in Chicago erupted, causing a riot to start. This resulted from the animosity towards the growing black community of Chicago, which provided competition for housing and jobs. Mistrust between the police and black community in Chicago only lent violence as an answer to their problems, leading to a violent riot. James Baldwin, an essayist working for true civil rights for African-Americans, gives first-hand accounts of how black people were mistreated, and conveys how racial tensions built up antagonism in his essays “Notes of a Native Son,” and “Down at the Cross.”
With the progression of time we find Frederick Douglas begin to shift the tone to a focus within himself. The story begins to c...
Baldwin, James. ?Notes of a Native Son.? 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
When Baldwin was three years of age his mother married David Baldwin, a Southerner who had made the journey to New York as part of the large stream of black migration north during the times following the First World War. James, t...
VOA. "James Baldwin Wrote About Race and Identity in America." VOA. VOA, 30 Sept. 2006. Web. 11 Apr.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
...on.” 1956. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998: 606-613.
Miller, Eugene E. Voice of a Native Son: The Poetics of Richard Wright. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
When reading “My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to my Nephew”, it was clear that Baldwin was not just writing a letter to his nephew but to society by interacting personal thoughts with public awareness.
... the miserable life that African Americans had to withstand at the time. From the narrator’s life in Harlem that he loathed, to the drug problems and apprehensions that Sonny was suffering from, to the death of his own daughter Grace, each of these instances serve to show the wretchedness that the narrator and his family had to undergo. The story in relation to Baldwin possibly leads to the conclusion that he was trying to relate this to his own life. At the time before he moved away, he had tried to make a success of his writing career but to no avail. However, the reader can only be left with many more questions as to how Sonny and the narrator were able to overcome these miseries and whether they concluded in the same manner in the life of Baldwin.