In the story “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin, he mentions his experiences with his father along with the American culture. He mainly focuses on hatred throughout the story, which come together with society and his relationship with his father.
Baldwin watches his father die of bitterness, and watches society grow bitter along side. Through the novel Baldwin gets intimidated with his father when he says that his friends are in league with the devil and intend to rob their family or everything they owned. Baldwin then becomes more distance to his father, due to the fact that he criticized his friends before knowing them. This relates to criticism between blacks and whites. For example; when Baldwin goes to a diner and the waitress tells him “We don’t serve blacks.”
Baldwin’s experiences throughout his life was always hatred and criticism towards his father and between blacks and whites. Having his father beside him all his life made him grow bitter about life and also seeing society through his father point of view. Once his father dies, Baldwin see society through his own point of view and not through the meaning his father left him.
3 comments:
When I read Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin, in got the same messsage you got.I agree that he was growing hatred within him, due to the fact that his father and the black and white amerincans realtionship was making him this way.You mentioned that before he saw the world through his dads eyes and now he will have to see it through himself, which is another message I got from your blog.
I notice you that you use the word choice "bitterness" and that is the same feeling I got towards Baldwin’s dad. He was so judgmental and bitter that he never took the time out to see that everyone was equal and that no one race was better than another. I feel that Baldwin’s dad took his judgmental personality to far when he says that if you don’t listen to church music only, then worship the devil and you won’t go to heaven. I’m relieved that when his father passed away he figured out that he needed to view society in a different way and not in the way his father did because it was wrong. I enjoyed reading this intense essay.
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