James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the major American novelists and essayists of the mid-twentieth century. In his three major collections of nonfiction, says Phillip Lopate, Baldwin "perfected a unique style of maximum tension which yoked together two opposites, tenderness and ferocity." In this excerpt from the autobiographical essay "Notes of a Native Son," Baldwin employs hypotactic structures to rank, order, and build his observations from evidence to conclusion.
from "Notes of a Native Son"* (1955)
by James Baldwin
The only white people who came to our house were welfare workers and bill collectors. It was almost always my mother who dealt with them, for my father's temper, which was at the mercy of his pride, was never to be trusted. It was clear that he felt their very presence in his home to be a violation: this was conveyed by his carriage, almost ludicrously stiff, and by his voice, harsh and vindictively polite. When I was around nine or ten I wrote a play which was directed by a young, white schoolteacher, a woman, who then took an interest in me, and gave me books to read, and, in order to corroborate my theatrical bent, decided to take me to see what she somewhat tactlessly referred to as "real" plays. Theater-going was forbidden in our house, but, with the really cruel intuitiveness of a child, I suspected that the color of this woman's skin would carry the day for me. When, at school, she suggested taking me to the theater, I did not, as I might have done if she had been a Negro, find a way of discouraging her, but she agreed that she should pick me up at my house one evening. I then, very cleverly, left all the rest to my mother, who suggested to my father, as I knew she would, that it would not be very nice to let such a kind woman make the trip for nothing. Also, since it was a schoolteacher, I imagine that my mother countered with the idea of sin with the idea of "education," which word, even with my father, carried a kind of bitter weight.
Before the teacher came my father took me aside to ask why she was coming, what interest she could possibly have in our house, in a boy like me. I said I didn't know but I, too, suggested that it had something to do with education. And I understood that my father was waiting for me to say something--I didn't quite know what; perhaps that I wanted his protection against this teacher and her "education." I said none of these things and the teacher came and we went out. It was clear, during the brief interview in our living room, that my father was agreeing very much against his will and that he would have refused permission if he had dared. The fact that he did not dare caused me to despise him: I had no way knowing that he was facing in that living room a wholly unprecedented and frightening situation.
Later, when my father had been laid off from his job, this woman became very important to us. She was really a very sweet and generous woman and went to a great deal of trouble to be of help to us, particularly during one awful winter. My mother called her by the highest name she knew: she said she was a "christian." My father could scarcely disagree but during the four or five years of our relatively close association he never trusted her and was always trying to surprise in her open, Midwestern face the genuine, cunningly hidden, and hideous motivation. In later years, particularly when it began to be clear that this "education" of mine was going to lead me to perdition, he became more explicit and warned me that my white friends in high school were not really my friends and that I would see, when I was older, how white people would do anything to keep a Negro down. Some of them could be nice, he admitted, but none of them were to be trusted and most of them were not even nice. The best thing was to have as little to do with them as possible. I did not feel this way and I was certain, in my innocence, that I never would.
Essay Collections by James Baldwin
- Notes of a Native Son, 1955
- Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son, 1961
- A Talk to Teachers, 1963
- The Fire Next Time, 1963
- No Name in the Street, 1972
- The Devil Finds Work, 1976
- The Evidence of Things Not Seen, 1985
- The Price of the Ticket, 1985
* James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son" appears in the collection Notes of a Native Son, first published by Doubleday in 1955 and reprinted by Beacon Press in 1984.
