Go Tell it on the Mountain (supplementary figure 2 in Annex) is without doubt one of the most celebrated works by James Baldwin, with many critics and specialists considering the book as his masterpiece. In the realm of popular culture, Time Magazine placed it in their listing “100 years, 100 books” and Grossman (2010), with a more intellectual perspective, stated that “Baldwin reached back to his experiences as a teenage Pentecostal preacher in Harlem and set them down in language steeped in the high and mighty rhetoric of Scripture”.
As many other masterpieces, it took many its writer many years to see the light. This one was no exception, it took Baldwin nearly 10 years not only to finish the manuscript but also to see it published. When it was published, Baldwin was not in America, as a matter of fact he was in France, and some parts of his book would also reflect his state of mind as an expatriate writer.
It should be, however, noted that James himself wanted that his “novel would be autobiographical and would address the African American condition, constituting a living record of his understanding” (Leeming 1994 p.84) and, at the same time, demanded “nothing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s merciless exhortations” and even less of Richard Wright’s “curses”
(Leeming 1994, p.117). In a way it can be said that James Baldwin wanted to be what, according to him, Richard Wright was not.
To have a clear idea and a small background about this book is needed. One must bear in mind the fact that this book was published in 1953, several years after the World War Two had ended but, still, during a period when the United States had become involved in two wars at the same time: the Cold War that was giving its first steps and the Korean War, which had its beginning in 1950 and was getting deadlier as the time went by. Last but not least, it must be added the United States were going through a period of radical nationalism intent on fighting communism abroad and at home knowns as McCarthyism.
While James Baldwin personally was not involved in none of those three events, he believed that being Anti-Communist was almost the same as being a white supremacist and it shocked him that “friends were throwing their friends to the wolves and justifying their treachery by learned discourses (and tremendous tomes) on the treachery of the Comintern” (Baldwin, 1998 p.370).
While this may seem a matter without any meaning or influence on Go Tell it on the Mountain, it
is always important to understand and comprehend the background and what actually had led Baldwin to write such a book.
Considering the fact that race has a strong role in this book, it is also important to understand how different were black people from white people; as a matter of fact we can see that according to the book From Slavery to Freedom, which was interestingly enough written sometime before Go Tell it on the Mountain, that when “In 1924 (…) the democrat candidate (…) promised that he would make no distinction on the basis of race or creed (…) African Americans began to desert the Republican Party” (Franklin; Moss. 1994 p.385).
Again, and as far as religion is concerned, and having in mind that religion is also an important topic on the book, Franklin and Moss state that “The lack of opportunities for African Americans to participate fully in the affairs of other institutions caused many to concentrate their energies and attention on the church” (Franklin; Moss, 1994 p.425) and this can be seen when the Baptist Community (James Baldwin’s household religion) was split in two organizations in 1917 and that in 1944 both of them had huge following with the National Baptist Convention having 4 million members and the National Baptist Convention of America having 2 million members.
Another important aspect worth mentioning regarding churches in America is the fact that James Baldwin would grow to believe, as already stated, that there is “no love in the church” and that the church “was a mask for hatred and self-hatred” (Baldwin, 1998 p.309), so it can be understandable why James Baldwin wanted to write Go Tell it on the Mountain, and why this book can be seen as somewhat autobiographical.
But concerning James Baldwin’s literature we see that he likes to use identity, and racial and social issues as main themes, especially because he lived with them and wanted to warn the general public about them. As mentioned above, he was a victim of those problems, one curious fact about Baldwin’s literature is that he also tends to criticize black people, especially if we bear in mind that Baldwin also believed that “no negro American exists who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in the skull” (Baldwin, 1998 p.32). This leads us to consider the fact that, quoting Pratt on his Baldwin’s biography, “most contemporary fiction (…) is designed to corroborate you” (Pratt, 1978 p.16) and because of that “Baldwin writings are (…) iconoclastic”
(Pratt, 1978 p.17) mainly due to the inspiration that he got from “jazz musicians, dancers, a couple whores and a few junkies” (Pratt, 1978 p.17-18).
His literature is not the most traditional literature and has not been the most “appreciated” if we consider inspirational household names like Ernst Hemingway or Dos Passos (all names stated by James Baldwin) but instead he writes, and lives based on what he saw and lived on his native Harlem. Yet, when James Baldwin went on to emigrate to Paris due to the extreme suffering that racism was causing to him, he would act against his principles because Baldwin would be alone despite the fact that he loved to be “the artist of the people, part of the people, yet he is alone”
(Pratt,1978 p.19).
According to Pratt, we also see that “Baldwin’s European self-exile was motivated chiefly by a quest for self-perception, it is not at all surprising that he employs the confessional mode in his first novel” (Pratt, 1978 p.50). As a matter of fact, we can also see that, according to a Baldwin interview to The Guardian in 1962 “In New York the color of my skin stood between myself and me, but in Europe that barrier was down. But I found I had been both released from an affliction and divested of a crutch. I discovered the question of who I was, was not answered because I had removed myself from the social forces which threatened me because these forces had become interior and I took them with me, so that the question of who I was, was at just a personal one, and I could only find the answer in me.” (Weatherby, 1962). It is interesting that he mentions that the color of his skin stood between he and himself, but at the same time, that barrier was no longer a something important. While one may argue that in Europe racism was not as prevalent as it was in America, one must bear in mind the fact that for most of his time in France, James Baldwin lived with another minority, on this case, the Algerians who were against the mainland because they were fighting for their independence, ultimately conquered, quite ironically, in 1962. Concerning this, Baldwin in another interview, this time to the New York Times would state that “Only white Americans can consider themselves to be expatriates. I am not that romantic. If I pretended, I could leave America, I would be lost. Once I found myself on the other side of the ocean, I could see where I came from very clearly, and I could see that I carried myself, which is my home, with me” (Bennetts, 1985).
This sentence by James Baldwin is another important aspect that should be studied when we analyze several of his works. The idea of being lost in a different place, only to find out that what we really are, and what we really need is always with us, and never leaves us. It is always important that when we leave to keep something from our homeland with us, either physical or just a placebo. As long as we have something like that, we will always have our home with us.
In a metaphorical and, in a way, deep analysis it is also possible to have several ideas of what home means. Home is not always the physical place where someone spends most of his life and turns from a child to a teen and from a teen to adult. Home is where a person feels well, welcomed and, most importantly, a place where a person has some of the most important moments, and if we go beyond the literal meaning and the dictionary, we tend to see that that metaphorical aspect of home can lead us to family and in this book, family is one of the most important themes mentioned. And family does not only mean home but also love.
Using Leeming as an example we can also see that "His novel would go to the heart of the reality in life ‘in my father’s house’, a house that was his family’s apartment on one level, Harlem on another, American on still another, and the ‘deep heart’s core’ on another” (Leeming, 1995 p.84). And by reading and analyzing this sentence, it is understandable why this sentence was uttered and agrees with what was mentioned above regarding the aspect of home and family.
Concerning James Baldwin, and the importance that family had on his life, one must bear in mind the fact that James Baldwin only knew his real mother, his siblings and his stepfather, the rest of the family was unknown to him, and this would greatly influence his life.
It was hard for him to find out his true origins and in a way, some of his ancestors, thus some aspects of Go Tell it on the Mountain can be seen replicated and a person with the right perspective can see similarities in John Grimes and James Baldwin, even if the latter would declare (as mentioned above) that he rarely wrote autobiographical novels, but it is pretty obvious that the book is about him and his experiences concerning this personal and religious life at home.
Pratt, declared that ‘’Go Tell it on the Mountain stands as an honest, intensive, self-analysis, functioning simultaneously to illuminate self, society and mankind as a whole. It is a quest that ends in futility for all of the characters expect John Grimes because they are unable to achieve two Baldwinian prerequisite for self-discovery” (Pratt, 1978 p.51). The idea of self-discovery stands out as one of the most important aspects in Baldwin stories, especially because Baldwin went through that during almost all his lifetime. At the time of his death, he was trying to find a motif to live and when we consider all the social shortfalls that Baldwin had to endure such as being black, gay and poor, we can see why that self-discovery was important for both Baldwin and, in the novel, for John Grimes.
By searching for the title Go Tell it on the Mountain one person can see that this title was, perhaps, inspired by the song that shares the name and it goes, “Go Tell it on the Mountain over the hills and everywhere; Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ was born.”. Thus, it is not hard to understand the religious undertone that this novel has and can be seen through most of its pages. It is also known that James Baldwin real-life stepfather was a Baptist Preacher, and for some reason, that Baldwin did not understand, was harsher on him in comparison to the other children that he had. But it should be noted that in spite of all this, James Baldwin was, for a time a dedicated person regarding religion as he was very involved until his age of 17, most likely due to the influence of his father. Leeming makes a point by stating that “The church experience was as important to Baldwin’s development as a writer and spokesman as were his relationships with teachers like Countee Cullen and Herman Porter and his early reading of Stowe and Dickens. In the pulpit he learned to use rhetoric effectively” (Leeming, 1995 p.25).
The similarities between James Baldwin and John Grimes are more than obvious, and the book even starts with the sentence “Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father. It had been said so often that John, without ever thinking about it, had come to believe it himself” (Baldwin, 1998, p.9) and just by reading it and with this simple sentence in mind we can observe many things.
The similarities between the characters from the book and people from James Baldwin family rapidly become more and more prevalent, this is something that the common reader would have difficulty in seeing, but someone with knowledge regarding James Baldwin life would see. The similarities, for instance, between the character Gabriel Grimes (John’s father) and David Baldwin are more than obvious.
We can see that John Grimes father was a preacher, a trait shared with James Baldwin; that John Grimes on his youth was someone with few if any hopes regarding his future life and this is more evident when we see that he began to believe that he, in fact, would be a preacher like his father, even if he had never thought about that. In fact, other people mentioned it and that would became more and more prevalent in his life, solely because of those assumptions. Thus, due to this we can see that John Grimes still had no ideas for his future and in a way, it can be said that his identity was in jeopardy even if it was solely because he was following what people said and not what he wanted to be. It can even be said that John felt the pressure of society towards him, and at the same time he did not want to let his father down, especially considering how important and influential he was on the city.
The similarities between James Baldwin and John Grimes are not exclusive to those aspects.
Much like James Baldwin, we get to know that John Grimes is also a descendant of slaves, and they were both born and raised in Harlem. While this two can be said to be obvious, and in a way, they are, one important aspect that is often forgotten, is the relationship between John Grimes and his father Gabriel. This relationship can be confusing because John does not know exactly what he feels and believes towards his own father. We see that John sometimes feels attracted to what his father stands for and believes in such matters as the church; we also see that John also feels repulsed by them.
We observe a quite complicated relationship between the two of them, and the same could be said about James Baldwin and his stepfather, but in a harsher way. In several of his essays and books, Baldwin does not give us the brighter image of his stepfather, who, on Baldwin’s own words, would consider him to be not as pretty as the other kids and would often believe that Baldwin’s intelligence and awards or accolades that young James received at school were not to be taken seriously because they were given by a white teacher and thus, David Baldwin believed, were just a way of apologizing for the racism that the white society had inflicted on the blacks.
John Grimes, on the other hand was the victim of a father that would refuse to let his son do anything that would be a sin. The idea of sin is somewhat important in this book because we see that John is somewhat afraid of committing those sins due to the importance that religion had to his father. Concerning this aspect, we see that, according to Rosenblatt, everybody on Go Tell it on the Mountain “wants to change, because everybody wants to be saved, and salvation here is connected to change” (p.81).
The idea of salvation is one of the most important aspects regarding Christianity and thus the idea of identity. By wanting to be saved, we see that many people were, in a way, afraid of doing something that was close to a sin, and this affected young John Grimes especially when we see that he confessed to sin on several occasions. “He had sinned. In spite of the saints, his mother and his father, the warnings he heard from his earliest beginnings, he had sinned with his hands a sin that was hard to forgive. In the school lavatory, alone, thinking of the boys, older, bigger brave” (Baldwin, 1998, p.16).
This idea of sin is obviously mentioned in several passages of the bible, as it is one of the most important aspects of Christianity. One of the passages that comes to mind is “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (King James
Bible, James 1:14). In my opinion this is one of the most important traits when it comes to deal with identity. We all have our choices, we are all different somehow, but deep down we are all tempted by something, or someone, but is how we react to that temptation that shows our identity.
Considering that Go Tell it on the Mountain is often taken to be an semi-autobiographical novel with the main character borrowing several of James Baldwin characteristics, we get to learn that James Baldwin himself also went through a similar self-realization phase, as we get to learn on the essay “Down at the Cross” that Baldwin became, during his
“(…)fourteenth year, for the first time, in my life, afraid – afraid of the evil within me and afraid of the evil without” (Baldwin, 1998 p.296). When Baldwin wrote this he was, at the time, an atheist, and therefore, for him to be afraid, it had to be on something about the real world. As it is known, during Baldwin adolescence, black people were getting repressed solely because of the color of their skin, as he says on his essay “Many thousands gone”, we can see that “Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves: the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his” (Baldwin, 1998 p.20), and the fact is, this still holds, not only for Go Tell it on The Mountain, but in real life. Racism is more and more prevalent in today society despite of all the legislation on civil rights. As a matter of fact, in one of the most pivotal moments of the novel we get to learn that Roy (John Grimes’ brother) is hurt and stabbed in his forehead, and according to Gabriel’s own words “You see? (…) It was the white folks you like so much that tried to cut your brother’s throat” (Baldwin 1998 p.43) showing anger and disdain not only to the act, but also to the white people in general, who, according to Gabriel, stabbed his son solely because of the color of his skin and this would enrage him to the point, that he slapped his own wife, and then his own son when he tried to defend his mother. Apparently, this type of behavior was somewhat usual on his house, because as Roy said, “I just don’t want him beating on me all the time (…) I ain’t no dog” (Baldwin, 1998 p.21).
According to an interview James Baldwin gave to John Hall to the magazine The Transatlantic Review nº37/38 and transcribed by Pratt and Standley in ‘’Conversations with James Baldwin (Pratt; Standley, 1989 p.100) “Separatism is a dream. The transfer of power will begin, on a
local, community level. The school battle of a couple years ago was very significant in that respect. We want schools, not necessarily equal but separate, just schools.”
While this may seem to have nothing to do with Go Tell it on the Mountain one should bear in mind that John Grimes’ brother gets stabbed by white people and because of that, Gabriel’s hatred towards white people begins to get more and more noticeable.
Concerning Roy’s sentence, we can see that Gabriel’s identity is somewhat corrupt and does not correspond to his true beliefs. I use the word corrupt not to say that someone made Gabriel to be the way he was, but because his behavior does not correspond to his true self, showing the hypocrisy that inhabits in some people and how easy some people show some colors on the inside and others on the outside because here we can see someone who preaches, who tries to show his kids how important religion and faith are important, and someone who claims to be pure and holy, is none of those; and not only that, Gabriel Grimes is someone that can be defined as cruel and a sinner. Some other aspect important mention regarding Gabriel’s hypocrisy is the fact that, according to Roy
“he got a belly too, I know it’s a shame the way that man eats” (Baldwin, 1998, p.21) and by saying this we can see that Gabriel is committing another type of sin, gluttony, and for someone who preaches the bible and for someone who is dedicated to religious causes, he is nothing more than an hypocrite.
While it can be said that Gabriel is a bad father, a bad role model and someone that does not set a good example when it comes to Christian faith; later in the novel we see that he is a character who was trapped on the past, his own past. Someone who refuses to acknowledge some of the things he did in his past, as well as someone that still holds a major grudge towards not only white people but, at the same time, against himself and his past.
In “Notes of a Native son” we see another similarity between James Baldwin and John Grimes when Baldwin asserts that he and his father also “had got on badly, partly because we shared, in our different fashions, the vice of stubborn pride” (Baldwin, 1998 p.63) and we get to learn that the stubborn pride that David Baldwin held was also caused by his ancestors and thus, his own childhood, especially when one bears in mind the fact that David Baldwin’s father was a slave.
The idea that James Baldwin’s ancestors were slaves, can be used as a motto to bring the idea of someone being foreign in his homeland. In my opinion this can be seen in either James Baldwin’s own life and in Florence and Gabriel on Go Tell it on the Mountain. When it comes to Baldwin it is easy to understand, and to see how this concept comes to life, especially when it is common knowledge that Baldwin needed to flee from the United States, his own country, because he felt somewhat of a stranger there. How can someone born and raised in America could develop the feeling of not being welcomed and instead feel like a total alien? The color of one’s skin should never determine our place in the world.
We are all equal. And Baldwin knew this, Baldwin knew that no matter what, the color of his own skin would hold him back. Even if he produced a masterpiece or wrote the best book in the history of humankind, people in America would look to the book and his author with a certain distance and, in a way, with disdain. As a black, homosexual person in America, Baldwin knew very well that his fate was determined right away, and thus he fled. He had to flee from the place that he declared to be his home. And if someone does not feel well in his own home, something is wrong, because home should be our comfort zone and the place where one feels free and one with his own.
According to the article “The Novels of James Baldwin: Struggles of Self-Acceptance” from 1985
“Baldwin’s reluctance to deal openly with his homosexuality partly accounts for the subdued nature of his treatment of that topic in Go Tell” (Nelson, 1985 p.11) before adding that ‘’John the protagonist, is only fourteen and the narration is limited to his internal point of view. Since he is too young and too confused about his sexuality to articulate and define his homosexual longings, such desires can only be suggested, not explained, to the reader’’ (Nelson, 1985 p.11).
In fact, Nelson mentions several important aspects in this novel; he mentions the tender age of John Grimes (fourteen) and the fact that in this novel most of the narration is from his point of view. Because of that some critics may argue that this is one of the most faithful narrations regarding homosexuality at such young age, and this is because not only the narrator, but also the author are homosexual, thus one can have a personal touch and idea from someone that is related to the main character; instead of imagining their feelings, the author almost puts himself in the place of John, and it is as if he was John, and the result is one of the most faithful portraits of homosexuality, and at the same time we should consider and not ignore Go Tell it on the Mountain as a semi-autobiography of James Baldwin. The narration is so authentic that Nelson