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An Analysis Of James Baldwin's This Morning, This Evening, So Soon

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As a gay black writer in racist mid-twentieth century America, James Baldwin felt a great need to escape. And he did, he moved to France where he spent most of his life. Baldwin often took inspiration from his own life experiences for his stories, and as a result, many of his stories are semi-autobiographical, and it is possible to see Baldwin in the place of the title character. Baldwin’s characters escape from their struggles by listening or playing music, taking part in a romantic relationship, traveling, drinking excess amounts of alcohol, or acting in a theater or in movies. Baldwin’s short stories have an episodic feel to them -- short intervals with loosely connected events. Across three of his stories, Previous Condition; This Morning, …show more content…

In this story, Baldwin explores his nameless narrator’s escape to France, and why his escape was successful. This escape was successful because, unlike Peter, this narrator is able to preserve his privacy and discover who he is without interference, “I could not hate the French, because they left me alone. And I love Paris, I will always love it, it is the city which saved my life. It saved my life by allowing me to find who I am,” (pg. 157). This narrator is also an actor, but instead of escaping into a less racist world while acting, he plays the part of Chico a biracial man, and confronts more racism as the character than in his life, “you come from America. The situation is not so pretty there for boys like you. I know you may not have been as poor -- as soon -- but is it really impossible for you to understand what Chico feels? Have you never, yourself, been in a similar position?” (pg. 169). By dealing with the racism when he is acting -- and trying on an identity -- our narrator is able to escape “the menacing, the hostile, killing world,” (pg. 158) in his real life: “maybe it’s better to have the terrible times first. I don’t know. Maybe, then, you can have, if you live, a better life, a real life, because you had to fight so hard to get it…,” (pg. 174). In Come Out the Wilderness, Ruth is stuck choosing between two futures, one with a white lover and one with a black lover. This story allows Baldwin to explore if he had not moved to France and not become a successful

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