TOW #14 - "Notes of a Native Son"

This essay is one of the most complex and conflicted pieces of literature I have ever laid eyes on. It focuses on the characterization of James Baldwin's father, a man often filled with rage, and how his time being alive affected Baldwin more than his death. Upon starting the essay we are dropped in the center of recently segregated Harlem, where Baldwin spent most of his early life. His large family is constantly at the hands of his father's angry episodes. What I found most interesting about the relationship between Baldwin and his father was that no matter how loudly he yelled at Baldwin, or how angry he may have gotten, he never failed to show how much he cared about him. Despite a severe lack of paternal affection, Baldwin's father loved all his children deeply. However, not one of the children had even a flicker of a relationship with him, "When he took one of his children on his knee to play, the child always became fretful and began to cry; when he tried to help one of us with our homework the absolutely unabating tension which emanated from him caused our minds and our tongues to become paralyzed, so that he, scarcely knowing why, flew into rage and the child, not knowing why, was punished" (Baldwin 222). This way his father acted unfortunately led to Baldwin never really speaking to his father, and his death brought him now sorrow. I found it so strange that even though he loved his father, he never got to establish a healthy relationship with him, which got me thinking about the possible underlying causes to this. My first impression was that the father had some intense damage to his psyche, which would most likely have been caused by a traumatic event. Given the time period this essay was written (1955), it is possible that Baldwin's father had fought in WWII, and a lack of being taught proper coping skills for the effects of war would most certainly ignite an infinite inferno in someone's mind. It may just be a another crazy thought of mine, but judging from the father's constant '180s' between loving and 'losing it' really struck me. It also struck me oddly that the author did not make this a larger focus in the essay (more 'towards the surface' perhaps)...Baldwin ends his essay by noting how hatred can destroy a man, which I think is really important to remember because very few family/friends attended his father's funeral, and reading this was a very awakening and moving reminder how our demeanor can really affect our surroundings.