James Baldwin\'s Autobiographical Notes Details

James Baldwin's Autobiographical Notes details his coming-of-age as an artist. Even as a child, Baldwin labored as writer. At a very young age he received fellowships and support before writing his first 'saleable' masterpiece Go Tell it on the Mountain. However, Baldwin writes: "I suppose, the most difficult (and most rewarding) thing in my life has been the fact that I was born a Negro and was forced, therefore, to effect some kind of truce with this reality. (Truce, by the way, is the best one can hope for.)" (Baldwin 1144). Baldwin says that he eventually came to the realization he was a bastard child of the West, and this sense of otherness affected his perceptions of all of the artifacts of Western culture such as Bach, Rembrandt, and Shakespeare. He hated the fact that his people had not produced such artistic giants, but he could not ignore his race. Baldwin feels that the subject of race relations has been written about too much, yet as an African-American he has no choice but to address the subject.

Andrea Lee in New African details her experiences as a child in the church where her father was a preacher. She finds the experience of listening to his sermons tedious. Her father leads an African-American congregation with a strong sense of respectability, as manifested in its support of the principles of Booker T. Washington. Lee knows where her father buys the robes and the other ritual trappings of Christianity, which deflates the significance of the ceremony in her eye (she would rather be climbing trees). However, even Lee feels a certain sense of awe at the ceremony of baptism, which is chosen in her evangelical Christian tradition, rather than administered to infants. Lee gets into a struggle with a very traditional Christian woman who has accepted her role as a caretaker of white children. Lee refuses to accept baptism when her father calls out, and wins her first struggle with a grown-up -- a revelation for the young Lee. Her family accepts her unwillingness to be baptized. While she continues to go to church, Lee experiences a revelation in terms of her ability to choose her own spiritual direction yet still be accepted by her family.

Question 2

Fiction: Describing how a character feels from a third-person omniscient point-of-view. "Mr. Tanimoto cooked his own breakfast. He felt awfully tired. The effort of moving the piano the day before, a sleepless night, weeks of worry and unbalanced diet, the cares of his parish-all combined to make him feel hardly adequate to the new day's work.

Effects: Allows the reader to identify with the character as a human being, even though Hershey is describing a historical event.

Nonfiction: Use of historical and geographical information about Hiroshima like the fact that the city was fan-shaped, the city's population had been reduced by 3/4ths due to evacuations, and the fact it had airports and factories.

Effects: Helps the reader better understand the reality of the situation, underlines the fact that despite the fact that fictional techniques are being used, this is 'real' history.

Question 3

In "Son," the conflict between the children and parents is generational in nature. Every succeeding paragraph of the short story takes the reader farther and farther back in time, detailing the history of the previous generation. The sons feel as if their fathers do not understand them. The son of 1973 thinks of himself as an interloper in his home. "Time has tricked him and made him a son" (Updike 1070). "Daughter of Invention" by Julia Alvarez depicts the conflict between a mother and daughter and the mother and the rest of the family. Alvarez's mother wants a source of esteem outside her maternal role and concocts inventions as a way of asserting her intelligence and value. Alvarez is desperate to fit into America and is embarrassed by her mother even though some of her mother's ideas, like wheeled suitcases, are not really foolish. Both stories suggest that understanding is only achieved by seeing the world from the other person's perspective. Updike stresses that all fathers once were sons, and the young Alvarez's desire for respect and defying notions of femininity are paralleled in her mother's desire for recognition through her inventions.

Question 4