James Baldwin: A Visionary

Why did I chose to analyze James Baldwin and his writing style? Well, Baldwin's sense of moral urgency drew me to him. He was a civil right's activist, and almost always included this theme within his writing, whether it be plain and factual or with a personal twist. Baldwin also talks about sexuality, as he was homosexual himself, and has opened up conversation about sexuality through his literature, which to me is a brave act. James Baldwin seemed to be ahead of his time with the issues that he strongly pushed for. In his personal life, Baldwin endured a lot of pain and hardship especially as a child. In "Notes of a Native Son" he uses this experience as a teaching moment. Mr. Baldwin never complained about his predicament; he simply told it as it was.

Stylistically, I was drawn to Baldwin because of his intricate prose. By reading his essays, it is as if you are hearing him speak to you. The cadence of his writing and the sense of urgency that comes through is almost hypnotic: I can't stop reading once I have started. I enjoy Baldwin's use of the "em dash" and his use of italics. Baldwin has a style that is definitely distinguishable. Baldwin writes mostly using long sentences, but they are always packed with information and never flowery or overdone. When a short sentence sneaks into his prose, you know it is for an important reason.

James Baldwin on Education

James Baldwin and Black Women's Literature

Click here to read about James Baldwin's influence on black women's fiction:
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No Name in the South: James Baldwin and the Monuments of Identity

Click here to read the scholarly article written on James Baldwin and identity:
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Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin

Equal in Paris Analysis

(1) On the nineteenth of December, in 1949, when I had been living in Paris for a little over a year, I was arrested as a receiver of stolen goods and spent eight days in prison. (2) My arrest came about through an American tourist whom I had met twice in New York, who had been given my address and told to look me up. (3) I was then living on the top floor of a ludicrously grim hotel on the rue du Bac, one of those enormous dark, cold, and hideous establishments in which Paris abounds that seem to breathe forth, in their airless, humid, stone-cold halls, the weak light, scurrying chambermaids, and creaking stairs, an odor of gentility long, long dead. (4) The place was run by an ancient Frenchman dressed in an elegant black suit which was green with age, who cannot properly be described as bewildered or even as being in a state of shock, since he had really stopped breathing around 1910. (5) There he sat at his desk in the weirdly lit, fantastically furnished lobby, day in and day out, greeting each one of his extremely impoverished and louche lodgers with a stately inclination of the head that he had no doubt been taught in some impossibly remote time was the proper way for a proprietaire to greet his guests. (6) If it had not been for his daughter, an extremely hardheaded tricoteuse --- the inclination of her head was chilling and abrupt, like the downbeat of an ax --- the hotel would certainly have gone bankrupt long before. (7) It was said that this old man had not gone farther than the door of his hotel for thirty years, which was not all difficult to believe. (8) He looked as though the daylight would have killed him.

When James Baldwin found himself in Paris for the first time, he was hoping to escape the torturous racism and hatred of the United States. He soon learned that he could never run away from prejudice.

The first sentence of Baldwin’s passage catches the reader’s eye, stating what happened, where it happened, why it happened, but not yet how it happened. Baldwin uses many prepositions and added details to provide the reader with a sense of imagery to the time and place that he is in (1). Remaining purely factual, Baldwin goes on to tell the reader that his arrest had come about through an American tourist whom he had hardly known (2). The sentence following is extremely long, telling the reader where he had been staying in Paris, providing imagery of the hotel with plenty of description. It is interesting that Baldwin describes the hotel as grim and disgusting, as the reader may have previously thought that Paris was only full of beautiful things. Continuing his description, Baldwin describes the “Frenchman” who ran the hotel, using an adverb clause to describe an elegant black suit “which was green with age” (4). Baldwin provides humor, stating that the man had “really stopped breathing around 1910” (4). Baldwin’s description of the man who runs the hotel is just as grim as his description of the hotel itself. He goes on to describe the man, stating that he never moved from his desk, and only slightly tipped his head to acknowledge guests. In this same sentence, Baldwin uses multiple french terms like “louche” and “proprietaire” (5). Baldwin does this to incorporate his own knowledge of France, and the fancy terms also show the contrast between the French language and this odd, ghostly hotel. The following sentence describes the man’s daughter, using dashes to set off “the inclination of her head was chilling and abrupt, like the downbeat of an ax” (6). The descriptions that Baldwin provides of the French people make them seem to be strict and mean. The end of the passage states, “He looked as though daylight would have killed him” (8). This simile that Baldwin uses to describe the owner of the hotel is especially stony and uninviting.

This paragraph that opens up the story “Equal in Paris” provides the eerie, creepy imagery of the hotel which the reader needs in order to connect Paris as a place that is not as beautiful as it seems. Baldwin goes on to parallel this grim hotel with the horrible outcome of “stealing” a bed sheet, which is when he gets arrested. Baldwin learns through this period in Paris that there is a “universal laughter which can’t be stilled.” The racism that he encountered in the United States would follow him for the rest of his life.

Sentence Imitations

I was then living on the top floor of a ludicrously grim hotel on the Rue du Bac, one of those enormous, dark, cold, and hideous establishments in which Paris abounds that seem to breathe forth, in their airless, humid, stone-cold halls, the weak light, scurrying chamber-maids, and creaking stairs, an odor of gentility long, long dead.
Equal in Paris - Baldwin

SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Appositive
Long interruption with many modifiers

My imitation:
I was then living in New York, on the west side of Brooklyn in a tiny studio apartment, one of those rooms which is hardly the size of my childhood bedroom, a room that seems to hide -- within its paper-thin walls, and its dingy 1950's-esque wall paper, underneath the sunken in couch cushions, and within each drop from the persistent leak of the faucet -- a secret lurking from long, long ago; a secret that haunts me every night as I attempt to get a few hours of fitful, restless sleep.

But each has paid, and is paying, a different price for this "common" language, in which, as it turns out, they are not saying, and cannot be saying, the same things: they each have very different realities to articulate, or control.
If Black English Isn't a Language, then Tell Me, What Is? - Baldwin

SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Them Vs. Us
Multiple interruptions
Parallel structure
Colon : simpler explanation

My imitation:
He noticed that they had lived, and still were living, a lie, in which, as it turns out, they had been weaving for years: he never really loved her, and she never really loved him.

Sentence Imitations

1) My aunt wept and wept, there was a whistling sound in my father's throat; nothing was said; he could not speak.
Notes of a Native Son - Baldwin

STRUCTURE OF THE SENTENCE
Independent clause 1, Independent clause 2; Independent clause 3; Independent clause 4.
This sentence breaks basic grammar rules, separating two independent clauses with only a comma.
Independent clause one goes with independent clause three. Independent clause two goes with independent clause four.
The stylistic advantage of doing this allows for equal focus on each of the clauses.
The sentence seems to have multiple subjects.

My imitation:
My mom stood silently next to the bed, my sister stared blankly at the ultrasound screen; there was no noise; there was no heartbeat to be found.

2) One had, in short, to come into contact with an alien culture in order to understand that a culture was not a community basket-weaving project, nor yet an act of God; was something neither desirable nor undesirable in itself, being inevitable, being nothing more or less than the recorded and visible effects on a body of people of the vicissitudes with which they had been forced to deal.
Equal in Paris - Baldwin

STRUCTURE OF THE SENTENCE
Interruption.
"to understand" infinitive.
not, nor
Semi-colon to balance the two parts
neither, nor
being, being
Provides parallel structure
Adds modifications to provoke imagery

My imitation:
You would, out of necessity, come to believe that he was not really your father, nor even a real man; was not someone to love or be loved, being unattached, being nothing more than a boy who had taken advantage of your mother and ran away when his act produced a life inside of her.

Lee A. Daniels on James Baldwin

"Some critics later said his language was sometimes too elliptical, his indictments sometimes too sweeping. But then, Mr. Baldwin's prose, with its apocalyptic tone - a legacy of his early exposure to religious fundamentalism - and its passionate yet distanced sense of advocacy, seemed perfect for a period in which blacks in the South lived under continual threat of racial violence and in which civil-rights workers faced brutal beatings and even death."

On Baldwin's Style...

Many have noted the strong influence of the language of the church, the language of the Bible, on Baldwin’s style: its cadences and tone.

"Once I found myself on the other side of the ocean, I see where I came from very clearly...I am the grandson of a slave, and I am a writer. I must deal with both," Baldwin, on moving to Paris, to the New York Times.

Baldwin on the Cover of "Time" (1963)

James Baldwin Speaks: A Message to Black Youth (1963)

Some Famous Pieces

Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

The Fire Next Time (1963)

Giovanni's Room (1956)

Notes of a Native Son (1955)

Another Country (1962)

Sonny's Blues (1957)

Nobody Knows My Name (1961)

If Beale Street Could Talk (1974)

Going to Meet the Man (1965)

The Price of the Ticket (1985)

"Love takes off masks that we fear we 

cannot live without and know we cannot

live within." James Baldwin

James Baldwin Writing

A Talk to Teachers Analysis

(1) In order for me to live, I decided very early that some mistake had been made somewhere. (2) I was not a 

“nigger” even though you called me one. (3) But if I was a “nigger” in your eyes, there was something about you – there was something you needed.(4)  I had to realize when I was very young that I was none of those things I was told I was. (5)  I was not, for example, happy. (6) I never touched a watermelon for all kinds of reasons that had been invented by white people, and I knew enough about life by this time to understand that whatever you invent, whatever you project, is you! (7) So where we are no is that a whole country of people believe I’m a “nigger,” and I don’t , and the battle’s on!  (8) Because if I am not what I’ve been told I am, then it means that you’re not what you thought you were either! (9)  And that is the crisis.

A Talk to Teachers by James Baldwin

James Baldwin’s essay A Talk to Teachers is derived from a lecture that he spoke, resulting in a writing style that is more casual and less polished than Baldwin’s usual prose. The passage that I have chosen to analyze from Baldwin’s essay provides an excellent example of what his language is like throughout the entire piece.

In Baldwin’s first sentence, he parallels “some mistake” with “somewhere.” I think that he chose vague diction to emphasize that there were plenty of mistakes made everywhere when it came to discrimination against black people. He uses the informal “you” throughout the piece, which attributes to the casual tone, but also provides a universality to his argument, possibly inferring that all white people that have some form of prejudice are being spoken to.

Baldwin uses the derogatory term “nigger” throughout his essay, in quotations, which shows his hatred towards the word, making it seem like it is not really a word at all. The repetition of this term stirs a feeling of discomfort, which is probably what Baldwin was aiming to do when he spoke this piece. Baldwin writes what he discovered at an early age, a piece of wisdom that is seldom recognized: “But if I was a “nigger” in your eyes, there was something about you — there was something you needed” (3). He utilizes the em dash in between his two main clauses, packing a punch at the sentence that directly follows. This sentence implies an idea extremely relevant to modern society: if someone says something bad or untrue about you, then that reflects their character more than it does yours.

Baldwin utilizes repetition again, repeatedly using the term “I am” or “I was” as well as “none” or “no.” Constantly there is an idea repeated that what white society tells black people they are is incorrect. Baldwin references his own realization of this on a personal level. He says twice that he realizes this idea “very early” (1) and “very young” (4). I think that he repeats this aspect because he wants to show teachers that children form their own thoughts about important issues early on in life, where they are easily influenced by adults.

Baldwin uses an interruption within his next sentence, separating “I was not” from “happy” (5). This provides emphasis on both of these parts in the sentence, particularly “happy.” The reader can feel the pain of Baldwin, because black men were framed to look “happy” by white people when obviously they were not. The next sentence connects back to this idea, how Baldwin has never held a watermelon, which also connects back to another reference he has made about watermelon prior to this paragraph. Baldwin claims that he has learned “that whatever you invent, whatever you project, is you!” (6). He repeats the “you” to emphasize that a person’s image is compromised, ideally, of what they choose. Baldwin uses italics to emphasize certain words throughout the essay as well. This is a technique that provides a voice to the essay when it is read aloud.

Baldwin brings his essay home, speculating on where we are at now. (Now being the time that he had written this essay, but still very relevant to today’s world.) He parallels himself to the you, the white society, saying, “Because if I am not what I’ve been told I am, then it means that you are not what you thought you were either!” (8). He structures his sentences in a way that have rhythm and easily parallel the idea of the black man to the white man. He cleverly argues that if the black man is not all of the nasty things that white society frames them as, then that must mean that the white man is not as wonderful and great as he thinks he is. The incrimination of the black man and the supremacy of the white man is thus invented by the white man. He ends this paragraph with one of the shortest sentences within it, “And that is the crisis” (9). This adds another extra punch to Baldwin’s idea that the real problem is not the black society, but the white society and what the negative view they construe of black society.

Baldwin’s essay is personal but also addresses issues that he found important, especially during that time. Overall, he argues that children need to be taught correctly, because if the United States does not find a way to use the children’s enormous energy, then the country will be destroyed by that energy. Within this passage, Baldwin’s uses of parallelism, repetition, and common-place diction enforce this idea in a urgent and easily understood manner.