Love In James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk

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Recommended: Racism in literature

Kayley Hoffman

Synthesis Essay

Love, in the American context, automatically assumes the connotation of romance. However, many different types of love thrive within relationships such as familial love, the love of a city, religious love, romantic love, and the list goes on just as about as far as the human capacity for love extends into society. If Beale Street Could Talk , written by James Baldwin, tells at its core a love story threaded and strengthened by the racism, prejudice, and search for justice that surrounds them. Baldwin uses these outside conflicts in order to build the essential bonds formed in love: the romantic, the familial, and the friendship between his characters.

Hopeless romantics crave for the story of love prevailing …show more content…

This usually would not constitute as love, but it draws from the selfless place from which love blossoms. It can be found in the courage of the Italian woman that comes to the support of Fonny and Trish when faced by Bell and his absolute corruption thus saving them from jail and terror(Baldwin). Another gem in the coal, was Sharon’s taxi driver Jaime who refused to leave her side and took a protective role while she was shunned during her stay in Puerto Rico ( Baldwin 184-85). Their compassion mimicked the love in which the Lord holds when it answers those who are lost and seek to be found( Merrill- Source D). This one is distinguished from the rest because it is unexpected and common one to be found throughout the journey taken in If Beale Street Could Talk.

Though filled with themes drawing attention to racism, prejudice, and moral injustice those act simply to create conflict and make the story of love realistic and relatable. The focus of If Beale Street Could Talk is not on the journey itself but the characters relationships formed because it is through those which the story is told. Baldwin focuses on the interactions and feelings of the characters in the moment rather than the moment itself because from those relationships stems the main, simple tale of a love story between Tish, Fonny, their families, and the couple of stranger roped in along the

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