The Role Of Religion In James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain

James Baldwin’s novel, Go Tell it on the Mountain focuses on the role of the christian church in the lives of African-Americans during a delicate moment in his life as a teenager in his search for identity. Christianity and religion plays a complicated role in many African American’s lives as they deal with peer pressure and sexuality. Similarly, in James Baldwin’s “Letter from a Region of my Mind, Part 1” he feels the constraints religion has upon him as well as the freedom and liberation it can play in his life. Both of these texts deal with three conflicts. The clash between father and son expectations, the coming-of-age struggle and the religious crisis. However, the rhetorical purpose of James Baldwin’s letter is to deliver the message

that one should never conform or fall into what society claims to believe the truth. The text questions the existence of the belief system and regulations we have in place. While, Baldwin’s narrative focuses on the perplexity behind the discovery of identity of a young man in a corrupt society in a more personal style. In terms of psychological perspective in Baldwin’s letter he is aware of the corruption around him and questions the injustice while, in Go Tell It on the Mountain the boy has yet to comprehend this sin.
In Baldwin’s letter the text suggests that one should be a non-conformist and become an individual.

It states, “ The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality—for this touchstone can be only oneself. Such a person interposes between himself and reality nothing less than a labyrinth of attitudes. And these attitudes, furthermore, though the person is usually unaware of it, are historical and public attitudes.” This passage is significant as it ends the excerpt because it claims that each individual is only a product of the ideals and beliefs of their ancestors, history and society. Racism, discrimination and oppression are all boundaries that have been formed in our minds from past historical events they are tied to our ancestral roots. Therefore, we can never escape it, it forms and molds within each generation as beliefs are passed on. For instance we see racism towards African Americans being played out in the text. This racism can be tied back to slavery in which the whites enslaved the blacks. In Baldwin’s letter it states, “ negro servants have been smuggling odds and ends out of white homes for generations, and white people have been delighted to have them do it.” Baldwin even admits to the sad truth that racism was a result of past generations

doing.
In Baldwin’s novel the young boy struggles with the pressures of society and seeking his own identity.

He is not a strong and independent character as is the man in the letter. The boy in Go Tell it on the Mountain is a vulnerable creature trapped in his own pitiful desires and society’s beliefs he states, “ his father, the warnings he had heard from his earliest beginnings, he had sinned with his hands a sin that was hard to forgive” (11). This poor boy’s mind is filled with guilt for an action that he committed out of his own free will. However, he is so worried about what others may think about him that he can not be happy. In contrast, the man in the letter does not care what others think of him and does not desire to follow in his father’s steps he claims, “ school began to reveal itself, therefore, as a child’s game that one could not win, and boys dropped out of school and went to work. My father wanted me to do the same. I refused, even though I no longer had any illusions about what an education could do for me.” Even though, most men went to work the man in this text is a strong-willed character whom resists his father’s ways. He is a strong and confident individual opposed to the weak and vulnerable boy seen in the

novel.
In Baldwin’s letter he writes using the rhetorical style. He questions the very existence and origin of discrimination and prompts the reader to make a change or difference in the World.
He makes harsh statements that the readers can debate on or challenge. The writer almost appears as though he is lecturing the youth of America about the wrongs in the system. This texts purpose is to create a difference in society. However, in Baldwin’s narrator the text contains a more personal style. The text focuses on using pathos in order to move the reader because it has a different purpose. Its purpose is to relate to the reader. Overall, both texts have a similar perspective on the world. The world is viewed as a creation of society and the author lives in this complex and oppressed world struggling to find his own identity. Even though both texts contain different styles and presentations there ultimate task is to create a difference in the world and have the reader view the world with an open mind.