James BaldwinEssay Preview: James BaldwinReport this essayJames Baldwins “Notes of a Native Son” demonstrates his complex and unique relationship with his father. Baldwins relationship with his father is very similar to most father-son relationships but the effect of racial discrimination on the lives of both, (the father and the son) makes it distinctive. At the outset, Baldwin accepts the fact that his father was only trying to look out for him, but deep down, he cannot help but feel that his father was imposing his thoughts and experiences on him. Baldwins depiction of his relationship with his father while he was alive is full of loathing and detest for him and his ideologies, but as he matures, he discovers his father in himself. His fathers hatred in relation to the white American society had filled him with hatred towards his father. He realizes that the hatred inside both of them has disrupted their lives.
Baldwins mind seems to be saturated with anger towards his father; there is a cluster of gloomy and heartbreaking memories of his father in his mind. Baldwin confesses that “I could see him, sitting at the window, locked up in his terrors; hating and fearing every living soul including his children who had betrayed him” (223). Baldwins father felt let down by his children, who wanted to be a part of that white world, which had once rejected him. Baldwin had no hope in his relationship with his father. He barely recalls the pleasurable time he spent with his father and points out, “I had forgotten, in the rage of my growing up, how proud my father had been of me when I was little” (234). The cloud of anger in Baldwins mind scarcely lets him accept the fact that his father was not always the cold and distant person that he perceived him to be. It is as if Baldwin has forgotten that they had ever been happy together.
Baldwins stay in New Jersey brought him face to face with the harsh realities of life. The white world had shut the door on him and he finally conceded the burden of being black. Baldwin affirms, “I had discovered the weight of the white people in the world” (222). Baldwin realized that his father was not trying to pass along his racist beliefs. He was simply trying to save them from the agonizing conduct of the whites towards them. He found the reason behind the bitterness in his father. Baldwin also became aware that the bitterness, which he had once hated in his father, was now a part of him “The bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me” (222). Baldwin did not want live a lonely life; the fear of becoming, what his father once was, dwelled in Baldwin. He realized that he had to free himself of the bitterness, before the bitterness distanced him from his family (like it had, for his father).
Baldwin felt torn between the feeling of hatred that he had always felt for his father and a gnawing feeling of guilt for not being able to understand the reason for his fathers detached behavior. He emphasizes, “The moment I saw him I knew why I had put off this visit so long. I told my mother that I did not want to see him because I hated him. But this was not true. It was only that I had hated him and I wanted to hold onto this hatred” (230). Baldwin was afraid to admit that his hatred was meaningless; but that feeling of hate had resided in him for as long as he could remember. Baldwin was not sure if he will ever be able to feel any other emotion except hate towards his father. He blamed his father for the bitterness in him. Baldwin does not want to accept that his fathers insensitive
**> behavior. He finds his feelings of guilt and self-injurious and the lack of respect he has for his father intolerable. He begins to become resentful toward the “father” for not respecting him. When he does not acknowledge that his father’s feelings of love have more in common with his feelings of resentment than others do, it is because he doesn’t feel what his father loves. After Baldwin’s tragic suicide, a young friend called out, “You’re the only one who can save our children! You must!” The younger one agreed, but still felt hurt by Baldwin’s death. After Baldwin came to know his great-grandfather’s death, he was so devastated that he began to have conversations with his “grandfather’s children, your uncle and your aunt and uncle and their wives. I told them the story of my mom after she was executed on April 11, 1968; and the day after I went to visit the house of my great-grandfather. In her last minutes she held me by the throat, „(231) but when I cried she was gone. After being there for several hours she looked at all of us the whole time and said, I am sorry, but what will I do? And my grandma, the one who spoke only three minutes after she lost her children, she said to me: “Look to the bottom of my heart when I feel no pity, I feel pity, you understand me?” She told me as a tribute to her aunt, who went to work every evening to save her children the next morning; she held onto her words for seven long hours, and never felt more sadness than when we met. We have been close since we had one day of togetherness at this house. My mom left a note to me of her feelings toward me and one to her grandmother who was also a friend of my father (232).
*[Footnote: According to The Man of His Time, The Man of His Time had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan for about fifteen years.] *[Footnote: The earliest known reference of this book (Tebow and Ayer, 1988) is from one of the original writings of the author, B. Huckleberry Finn. Finn’s work, “Huckleberry Finn: The Origins of the Nation’s Ethnic Violence,” is now in the collection of Library of Congress, but is difficult to obtain from the library (or e-Book). Huckleberry Finn has included a small booklet called “The True History of Ethnic Violence,” which contains the chapter “Savage Fights, National Security, and the End of the Klan.” (The name of the book bears an uncanny similarity to a name given to an FBI “Sanger” bureau: “Agent J.” Nelson, in the FBI’s book, “Agent J. Nelson.”) For the full historical history, consider the following:— (1923) The earliest known reference to this book is in the Book of Mormon to the family of Joseph Smith III and his family members. (1928) “The King James Version of the