Analysis Of Going To Meet The Man By James Baldwin

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Recommended: Nurture vs nature argument

In “Going to Meet the Man,” James Baldwin writes of Jessie, a white sheriff in the racially-charged post- civil war south, who is having sexual problems with his wife and is instead sexually attracted to African American women and is seemingly aroused by violence in the jailhouse. Jessie has a flashback during the story to when he was a young child and his parents took him to watch a huge crowd of people lynch and castrate a black man. This, along with violent racism Jessie acts on towards African Americans, brings up the nature vs nurture argument in terms of racism. In this paper, I will argue that Baldwin uses vivid, explicit sexual language to argue that racism stems from dual causes; one being sexist undertones in which African Americans …show more content…

Some of this insanity is explained in the flashback scene when Jessie’s parents take him to watch a man get lynched, castrated, and burned to death, an outing compared to a great adventure and a Fourth of July Picnic (431). This hyperbolic event is intended to draw some sympathy, without excusing Jessie, from readers by showing that this racism was bred into him by his parents and community. Jessie compares This scene shows Jessie’s transition from a racially accepting child into a racist, just like his parents and other members of their community because before the lynching, Jessie was friends with Otis, a black boy, and they played together a lot, but then he couldn’t think of Otis without feeling nauseous (430). This racism was clearly encouraged by Jessie’s parents because Jessie thought his dad had “…carried him through a mighty test, had revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever” (435). Jessie, who was only 8 years old, was taught to find joy and beauty in seeing a black man hanging, burning, and see him as “the hanging head” (435) rather than as a person and even wished he was the one castrating him. Baldwin uses this to show how racism is taught to children and is thus deeply ingrained in society. This is important because it shows how difficult it is to eradicate

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