Deeper Meaning
In the story, "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon", we have seen two big moments that, on the surface, would be considered generic for the location: the two lovers on a boat in Paris, and the coming to America with "freedom" all around. However, Baldwin uses the race of his narrator to create a deeper meaning behind what are, on the surface, very quintessential moments.
The first one of these scenes is a flashback from the narrator's past. He is standing on a bridge in Paris in April with his girlfriend during the sunset, and he calls it the moment he knew that he was in love. The scene sounds much like the quintessential climax in many romance plots. However, the one he loves, Harriet, is white, and he is black. With the setting being presumably around the 1960's, this leads to a lot of tension behind such a couple. This is the reason for the narrator calling this moment the one he knew that he was in love. He was with this white woman, Harriet, and although there were people around them, he felt comfortable around her. It was the first time he felt at ease around her. This adds a lot more to the generic idea of a young couple on a bridge in Paris. The love felt by the narrator is emphasized by this being the first time he could really feel at ease in such a public setting.
The quintessential boat ride to America for freedom is also changed by these racial dynamics. Moments such as viewing the Statue of Liberty, normally seen as a symbol of freedom, serves as a joke for the narrator. A man showing his daughter the statue, explaining its promises of freedom and equal opportunity, yet that has clearly not been the case from the background of the narrator, and the narrator's point of view lets us see that. It gives a different and interesting perspective to what again would seem to on the surface be a generic, quintessential entrance into the United States.
Baldwin's playing with these moments, giving them these deeper meanings from a racial paradigm, really adds a lot to the ideas of these moments. While on the surface they may sound generic, I really like how Baldwin plays with them. He has his context of the narrator being a black man living in France formerly from Alabama, what sorts of life experiences he will have had, and he takes these moments and frames them in that context. It's a really interesting way to get a fresh look on something I recognize, and it brings an interesting deeper meaning to the stories. I'm wondering now how much Baldwin as a writer has done this - these moments are so clear, but maybe looking back on other stories of his, perhaps he's taking common parts of those stories and changing them to fit his context?
The first one of these scenes is a flashback from the narrator's past. He is standing on a bridge in Paris in April with his girlfriend during the sunset, and he calls it the moment he knew that he was in love. The scene sounds much like the quintessential climax in many romance plots. However, the one he loves, Harriet, is white, and he is black. With the setting being presumably around the 1960's, this leads to a lot of tension behind such a couple. This is the reason for the narrator calling this moment the one he knew that he was in love. He was with this white woman, Harriet, and although there were people around them, he felt comfortable around her. It was the first time he felt at ease around her. This adds a lot more to the generic idea of a young couple on a bridge in Paris. The love felt by the narrator is emphasized by this being the first time he could really feel at ease in such a public setting.
The quintessential boat ride to America for freedom is also changed by these racial dynamics. Moments such as viewing the Statue of Liberty, normally seen as a symbol of freedom, serves as a joke for the narrator. A man showing his daughter the statue, explaining its promises of freedom and equal opportunity, yet that has clearly not been the case from the background of the narrator, and the narrator's point of view lets us see that. It gives a different and interesting perspective to what again would seem to on the surface be a generic, quintessential entrance into the United States.
Baldwin's playing with these moments, giving them these deeper meanings from a racial paradigm, really adds a lot to the ideas of these moments. While on the surface they may sound generic, I really like how Baldwin plays with them. He has his context of the narrator being a black man living in France formerly from Alabama, what sorts of life experiences he will have had, and he takes these moments and frames them in that context. It's a really interesting way to get a fresh look on something I recognize, and it brings an interesting deeper meaning to the stories. I'm wondering now how much Baldwin as a writer has done this - these moments are so clear, but maybe looking back on other stories of his, perhaps he's taking common parts of those stories and changing them to fit his context?
Good post Nathan! I also thought Baldwin worked well with subtext. In a way, the scene with the police officers kind of shows the framework for the kind of complex and stressful dynamics the narrator is going to have to deal with, second guessing what may be kindness as well as responding to open hostility. Baldwin conveys this irony very movingly I think.
ReplyDeleteBaldwin does a great job of helping us comprehend situations and experiences that we might not be able to understand otherwise. For example, in the scene where the father is showing his daughter the Statue of Liberty, if all we read is "I watched as a father put his daughter on his shoulders and showed her the Statue of Liberty," we wouldn't really get the subtext of what the statue means for the narrator. Baldwin clearly conveys to us his feelings about the statue, his unease around policemen, and the subtext in a variety of other situations throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteA lot of this story just takes those generic storylines that show up in white literature, film, and television all the time (romance in Paris, the Statue of Liberty, actors debating with directors), and puts them through a black lens. Baldwin's work with this is a good example of diverting away from stereotypical black fiction about slavery or jazz and drugs or The Man, and reminding audiences that black people experience those super basic Nicholas Sparks scenarios too, but that the general expectation and understanding of the black experience in America flips those Nicholas Sparks scenarios completely on their heads. Baldwin is showing us that the black experience is more than the easy-to-publish struggling and oppressed narrative, but that American racism builds lifelong psychological barriers that make every experience ~that~ much more stressful.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed how Baldwin played with these traditional storylines, and twisted them to fit the narrator's perspective as an African-American living in France. I thought that it makes you think a lot more about where you see these narratives in other popular culture: like you said the bridge scene seems almost rom-com and the Statue of Liberty represents the greatness of America to lots of white Americans. But to the narrator, these scenes change in some way because he's black. Good post!
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