Private and Public Notes of a Native Son Essay -- James Baldwin

The Private and Public Notes of a Native Son The kernel of the twentieth century saw the height of the civil rights struggle of African Americans. Amid this tumultuous era rose up a generation of tumid African American writers, and among them was James Baldwin. In Notes of a Native Son, an analyze that he wrote more than a decade after his induce died, Baldwin rec on the wholes and reflects on his troubled interaction with his father, a man whom he has hated all his life. His vivid news report of his father and his personal encounters around the time his father died reveals the evolution of his view on the racial issues in America. Baldwin extensively draws on his past experience as an embodiment of the public experience divided up by many other people to make a infrangible case for his argument. James Baldwin never fails to express his disgust for his father. Not ut or so into the essay, he reminds the reader of the 2 race riots in 1943, and he jeerin gly describes this state of instability and social discontent that coincided his fathers dying as a corrective for the pride of his eldest son (63). agree to Baldwin, not only did his father always fail to establish involvement with people, including his children, he attempted to keep his children from contact with the outside world. He veto his children to play Louis Armstrongs records, distrusted all white people, and constantly associated his childrens friends with the devil. Although he had good intentions, he never managed to convert them into pleasing deeds, and he, in Baldwins own words, treated almost everybody on our block with a most charitable asperity (67). Baldwins mental image of his father is elflike short than that of a tyrant. This comparison is ... ...hich, in his case, were his dead father and his newfangled born sister. To believe in unimportant things such as struggle color will only led to ones destruction, because, as he comments, hatred, which could d estroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated. (84). He maintains that accepting things as they are while at the same fight with ones full strength against injustice are two conflict ideas that one has to hold in mind. Baldwin does not intend to initiate his moral discovery to the reader as an absolute truth. In fact, he concedes that he too has questions that the future will answer. However, supported by his narration and analysis of his private and the public experiences, he makes a strong argument.whole kit and boodle CitedBaldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. 1995. James Baldwin Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York Library of America, 1998. 63-84.