Moral Dualism In James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain

James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain portrays the discrepancies between societal moral codes that uphold the current distribution of power, and ethics that benefit the greater community. These differences lead to theological systems that exalt the clergy regardless of their true ethical standing. Thus, Baldwin argues that widespread Manicheanism leads to rigid and oppressive hierarchies.

Go Tell it on the Mountain provides symbols of water that mirror those of biblical text, such allusions, both in difference and similarity, highlight contradictions in moral dualism. For instance, John describes the evils of his mind as “like the sea itself: troubled and too deep for the bravest man’s descent” (170). According to the Manicheanism the

Temple of the Fire Baptized professes, good originates from the spiritual and sin from the physical, making creation itself iniquitous. Contrastingly, in Genesis, the seas predate creation, and by extent sin (New Revised Standard Version, Gen. 1.1–2). Thus, such comparisons contradict common biblical teachings.
However, Baldwin later reverts to biblical symbolisms and contradicts not only the scripture, but also the novel itself.

For example, John envisions the congregation attempting to wash blood from their feet, but “many washings only turned the crystal water red” (240). By comparison, the transformation of rivers to blood demonstrates the vengefulness of the divine, as exemplified in the Book of Revelations, in which, “The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers … and they became blood. And … the angel of the waters [said] … ‘they shed the blood of saints and prophets, you have given them blood to drink’” (Rev. 16.4–6). The discrepancies within Go Tell it on the Mountain and the differences from biblical texts, warn that dualist extremes falsify themselves through intrinsic

contradictions.
Baldwin cautions that the actions of an individual stem not from their desires, but rather from the needs of a community. The parallels between the epiphanies of Gabriel and John, reverting to religious ideologies they initially oppose, most clearly demonstrate this: Gabriel sees that his “hands and [his] feet [are] new” (109), while Elisha praises John’s transformation: “The Lord laid him out, and turned him around and wrote his new name down in glory” (262). Despite their prior dissatisfaction with religious life, they live thereafter within the rules of their community. Such rapid changes warn that social groups replace personal ethics with external ideals, thereby perpetuating and strengthening any flaws in the group, in this case, the aforementioned dualisms.
According to Baldwin, the flawed structures that polarized moral ideologies necessarily create hierarchical systems.

Both the Elders and Gabriel’s self-righteousness most aptly exhibits this, as Gabriel realizes the sins of the Elders and feels “that he had surprised them; he had found them out and they were a little ashamed and confounded before his purity” (123), yet Gabriel ignores the sins he commits, thereby establishing the double-standard to which the clergy holds congregants. Moreover, Baldwin uses such inequalities to express the invocation of socially acceptable but ethically objectionable codes as means to exert power over others. The relationship between Gabriel and John provides the foremost example of this: Gabriel perceives that “Satan, at that moment stared out of John’s eyes while the Spirit spoke” (175), while according to all other accounts, John gains his salvation in the same event. Gabriel’s view of John as inherently sinful advances his own supposed virtue, rather than promoting ethical behavior. Thus, Manichean morality allows the architects of the system to impose their dominance over the other

adherents.
Baldwin’s disdain for simplistic moral systems promotes nuance and moderation as greater values than absolute rules. His arguments for more equivocal ethics extend beyond religious on local matters, to the greater societal evils of Racism, and sexual repression, which he portrays similarly in the work. This greater analysis calls for an ethical system that caters to the needs of each situation and each individual, rather than prescribing universal codes of morality.