My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew James Baldwin 1924–1987
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Civil Rights and Protest Literature My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew RI 1 Cite strong and thorough Open Letter by James Baldwin textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the Meet the Author text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. RI 6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose James Baldwin 1924–1987 in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing In the turbulent 1960s, James Baldwin supported himself by writing book reviews how style and content contribute became one of the country’s most sought- and waiting tables. Baldwin achieved some to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text. L 5a Interpret after commentators on racial politics. success but felt increasingly stifled by the figures of speech (e.g., paradox) But Baldwin never considered himself racist climate of the United States. In a life- in context and analyze their role in the text. a spokesperson. Rather, he saw his role changing decision in 1948, he bought a as bearing witness “to whence I came, one-way plane ticket to Paris. “Once I found where I am . to what I’ve seen and myself on the other side of the ocean,” he did you know? the possibilities that I think I see.” This later explained, “I could see where I came autobiographical vantage point is the from very clearly, and I could see that I James Baldwin . hallmark of Baldwin’s greatest works, carried myself, which is my home, with me. • was mentored by poet from his moving first novel, Go Tell It on You can never escape that.” Countee Cullen in high the Mountain (1953), to the provocative Long-Distance Outrage With their school. essays collected in Notes of a Native Son penetrating insight and apocalyptic • moved to Paris at age 24 (1955), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), tone, Baldwin’s essay collections were and only returned to the and The Fire Next Time (1963). United States for visits. bestsellers. By the mid-1960s, he was • was working on a Early Struggles Born and raised in an international celebrity, popular on biography of Martin Harlem, Baldwin never knew his biological the lecture circuit and in public debates, Luther King Jr., when father and had a strained relationship with interviews, and panel discussions in the he died. his stepfather, a domineering, bitter man United States and Europe. In writing who preached at a storefront evangelical about his perceptions and personal church on weekends. A star pupil and torments, Baldwin made white Americans voracious reader, the young James also deeply, painfully aware of the realities of helped his overworked mother raise his African-American life. As black leaders eight brothers and sisters. After a dramatic in the 1950s and 1960s looked outward (background) Harlem in 1937 religious conversion at age 14, he gained to break down barriers, Baldwin looked local acclaim as a “boy- inward to examine the psychological ppreacher.”rea Then, at 18, a damage of racism and the search for black crcrisisis of faith drove Baldwin identity and self-realization. In the words ttoo bbreak with the church of playwright Amiri Baraka, “Jimmy’s anand leave home. voice, as much as Dr. King’s or Malcolm X’s, helped shepherd and guide us toward Emerging Artist black liberation.” WorkingW to establish his lliterary career, Baldwin Author Online Go to thinkcentral.com. KEYWORD: HML11-1250 1250 NA_L11PE-u06s34-brDun.indd 1250 12/15/10 6:17:26 PM text analysis: rhetorical devices Baldwin is known for his passionate and poetic style, which is based on his skillful use of rhetorical devices. Baldwin uses these techniques to drive home his points and to create What protects rhythmic effects that echo spoken language: your sense of • A paradox is a statement that seems contradictory but really points to an important truth. Baldwin uses this device to self? push his readers to think more deeply about familiar ideas. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. Part of growing up is deciding who you want to be and how to make your vision • Repetition is the use of the same word, phrase, or sentence a reality. But how do you keep your more than once for emphasis. Baldwin uses repetition sense of self strong when others tell expressively, to convey deep emotions. you who you can and cannot be? James You must accept them and accept them with love. Baldwin offers his nephew some advice on protecting his self-worth from the As you read, note the rhetorical devices Baldwin uses, and crushing forces of racism. consider their effects. QUICKWRITE Think about the messages reading strategy: identify purpose you get about yourself from family, Baldwin’s sentences do more than simply explain his points; friends, media, and other sources. they stir powerful emotional responses in the reader. Often, the Which ones support you and which meaning of his statements becomes apparent only after careful ones seem to hold you back? List at thought and reflection. As you read this letter, study Baldwin’s least two examples in each category. purpose for writing. In a chart like the one below, note key sentences Based on your list, what in your life that convey Baldwin’s purpose. Then, after you have finished the most helps you protect your self-worth? letter, summarize the reasons why Baldwin wrote this letter. Baldwin’s Sentence Purpose Support Hold Back 1. With hard 1. College is vocabulary in context work you can too expensive Baldwin uses the following words in his eloquent appeal. achieve your and not dreams (my worth it Complete each sentence with one of the words. mom). (my friend 2. George). word constitute mediocrity unassailable list 2. impertinent truculent 1. You conceal your fears with a(n) _____ attitude. 2. Don’t settle for _____; strive for excellence. 3. It is never _____ to speak honestly. 4. Know exactly what tasks and obligations _____ your duty. 5. Let your convictions be strong and your truth _______. Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook. my dungeon shook 1251 NA_L11PE-u06s34-brDun.indd 1251 11/30/10 10:08:17 AM My Dungeon Shook Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation James Baldwin background In 1963, as the nation’s perspective on the race problem grew Analyze Visuals more pessimistic, James Baldwin published his essay collection The Fire Next Time. Describe the story that Expressing the pain and anger that African Americans had concealed for so long, this painting seems to Baldwin addressed his provocative essays to a sympathetic white audience that had tell. Which elements help failed to grasp the full magnitude of racial injustice. His searing attack fit the national the artist connect the two mood, and the collection soared up the bestseller lists. Its success made Baldwin an figures in the foreground icon of black rage and a widely televised commentator on racial issues throughout the with the main story of the 1960s. The following letter, taken from The Fire Next Time, captures the extremes of painting? Baldwin’s style: the righteous anger that made him famous and his fervent belief in the redeeming power of love. Dear James: I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times. I keep seeing your face, which is also the face of your father and my brother. Like him, you are tough, dark, vulnerable, moody—with a very definite tendency to sound truculent truculent (trOkPyE-lEnt) because you want no one to think you are soft. You may be like your grandfather adj. eager for a fight; in this, I don’t know, but certainly both you and your father resemble him very fierce much physically. Well, he is dead, he never saw you, and he had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons that he 10 became so holy.1 I am sure that your father has told you something about all that. Neither you nor your father exhibit any tendency towards holiness: you really are 1. so holy: Baldwin’s stepfather was a minister who raised his children in a strict, conservative, religious environment. Father, Charly Palmer. Mixed media collage on wood. 1252 unit 6: contemporary literature 18˝ × 12˝. © Charly Palmer. NA_L11PE-u06s34-Dunge.indd 1252 11/30/10 10:02:35 AM NA_L11PE-u06s34-Dunge.indd 1253 11/30/10 10:02:51 AM of another era, part of what happened when the Negro left the land and came into what the late E. Franklin Frazier2 called “the cities of destruction.” You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t you ever forget it. I have known both of you all your lives, have carried your Daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I don’t know if you’ve known anybody from that far back; if you’ve loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man, you gain a strange 20 perspective on time and human pain and effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father’s face, for behind your father’s face as it is today are all those other faces which were his.