Notes Of A Native Son Essay

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Anh Vu Engl 1A Erin O’briant 06/22/2011 “Notes of A Native Son” – A question to be answered "Notes of A Native Son" is one of the essays from the book that shares the same name written by James Baldwin. This essay tells a true story about how the author's father's death has affected his point of view of what he, as a Negro, was and how he had dealt with life in the society from 1940 to 1950. This time period is known as a transition from slavery to freedom and that is the reason why it happened to be very chaotic. Some white men just did not accept the fact that the situation had changed. So they just kept holding the thought that black people were not deserved to be treated equally. Baldwin and his father, the first and second generation of freemen, was a typical example of discrimination in this time. Throughout this essay, Baldwin has explained his strained relationship with his father because of all the anger and paranoia his father expressed during his childhood. But also at the same time, he regretted that he did not get to know him better when he was alive since the moment Baldwin realized that his father was only trying to protect him from racism. By going through all the experiences that Baldwin and his father had earned by their skin color, he himself have learnt about what position he and Negroes in general were placed in by the society in that time and how he has figured a way out. Even though Baldwin’s father’s past was not revealed to us but it is easy to see that he had held the grudge toward the white people till the day he left this world. He was the first generation of freemen and his mother was born during slavery. He himself must have seen all the abusive treatments that the white people had done to his mother, to black slaves. It is understandable that he became such a man who always felt suspicious with white people – “Some of them could
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