Places Discussed
*Harlem
*Harlem. Predominantly African American neighborhood in New York City’s Upper Manhattan. Harlem is the scene of the real-time narrative of the novel, an urban community in which the lives of the central characters intertwine. Harlem is also symbolic of the historic northward migration of African Americans seeking escape from the Jim Crow South in the early twentieth century. As a physical marker of historical transition, Harlem symbolizes an ambiguous free space for the Grimes family, providing the sanctuary of a Black-defined neighborhood in America, but also signifying restricted space on another level for the characters. For example, when John Grimes and his biological father, Richard, try to create a life outside the boundaries of Harlem, they must struggle with external racial barriers and internalized mental barriers to do so.
*American South
*American South. As a region, the South resonates with symbolic importance in the memories, prayers, and visions of the novel’s characters. None of the real-time action of the novel occurs in the South; however, the South is symbolic of the psychological and historical origins of the Grimes family and other key characters. The South also works symbolically on other levels. It signifies the legacy of slavery in American history, with all of its physical, mental, spiritual and political implications for the characters, for African American history, and for the country as a whole. As embodied in the consciousness of the characters, the South also signifies the continued reality of American apartheid, which through the literary device of visionary prayer is projected “north” and played out in the present of the novel, and, by extension, it is projected into the 1950’s context of the novel’s original publication. As the place from which many of the key characters come, the South profoundly affects “where they are.”
Pentecostal church
Pentecostal church. Harlem church in which John Grimes, his family, Elisha and the “Saints” gather for prayer services on the threshing floor as the symbolic (and ironic) center of African American history and consciousness. This temple is also the place where the characters confront American history and culture, through the intense visionary experience of their prayers. Interpreters of Go Tell It on the Mountain disagree regarding whether or not John Grimes has a religious conversion on the threshing floor, and whether whatever kind of conversion he does experience is toward, or away from, the tradition represented by Gabriel and the Black church. However, among these differing interpretations, there is no dispute about the importance of the threshing floor as the altar, so to speak, where John “descends” into history and where he experiences his ultimate epiphany.
Movie theater
Movie theater. Midtown Manhattan theater that John visits on his birthday, the day of his profound rebirth. The movie theater becomes a secularized temple for John, a place where the film he sees symbolizes the world of art, open sexuality, and creativity. Drawn toward the “temptation” of art, John struggles throughout the novel to see his history and the history of his people, as a source for the liberating possibilities of artistic expression.
*Central Park
*Central Park. Large park in the middle of Manhattan that serves as a transitional space, working symbolically within the richly textured biblical imagery of the novel as a whole. Early in the novel, John crosses the park, the wilderness, to climb to the summit of a hill, and is gripped by a prophetic presentiment of freedom, power, and transcendence. His brief but sharply focused encounter with an elderly White man in the open space of the park symbolically affirms the possibility of a mutually acknowledged shared humanity. This encounter...
(This entire section contains 631 words.)
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occurs in a space away from the city streets, where the characters are protected for a brief moment from the identity pressures and pre-set patterns of American society.
Historical Context
The Rise of Harlem
The Harlem neighborhood in New York City, where the Grimes family lives, is renowned worldwide as a predominantly African-American area with a rich cultural legacy dating back to the early 20th century. The initial significant migration of Black people to New York began in the 1890s. Much like Gabriel and Florence, this generation was born after the abolition of slavery in 1865, being the children of freed slaves from the South—a generation with a heightened sense of freedom. Between 1890 and 1910, New York City's Black population tripled.
Harlem was initially intended to be an upscale area for affluent Black families, but an economic downturn in 1904-1905 halted investment and development. Large apartments meant for wealthy families were divided with temporary walls or rented to multiple families. Newly arrived Black residents in New York City almost always settled in Harlem, where they found a level of peace unavailable elsewhere. They migrated from the South, where Jim Crow laws legally enforced economic disadvantages and violence against Blacks went unpunished. They also came from Panama, where many West Indian workers, employed to build the Panama Canal, found themselves jobless after its completion in 1914. Additionally, many arrived from the Armed Forces, as a significant number of the 370,000 Blacks who served in World War I experienced racial tolerance abroad, particularly in France, making it difficult to return to their narrow-minded hometowns.
By the 1920s, Harlem had become a lively community, the epicenter of African-American culture. The term "Harlem Renaissance" describes the flourishing intellectual and artistic community in Harlem during the 1920s. Harlem nightclubs, such as the iconic Cotton Club, attracted wealthy White New Yorkers, allowing Black entertainers to earn more in a week in Harlem than they could in a month on the road, facing travel hardships and racism. As Harlem's reputation grew, it drew even more people.
However, the 1929 stock market crash led to the country's worst financial depression. Entertainment funds dried up, causing artists to scatter in search of work. Racist employment practices favored unemployed Whites over unemployed Blacks. The Depression devastated Harlem: the once-thriving neighborhood turned into an overcrowded slum, where the fortunate had menial jobs and the less fortunate were unemployed. By 1935, the year this novel is set, the former cultural hub had become an international symbol of poverty and urban decay.
Civil Rights
Go Tell It on the Mountain was published as the Civil Rights movement in America began to achieve significant results, bringing greater social justice than had been seen since the end of the Civil War nearly a century earlier.
Black Americans were still not given equal social status. In the North, they faced covert discrimination that wasn't openly discussed, rather than explicit laws. In the South, however, laws were enacted to impede the progress of Black citizens. Voter registration laws were crafted to restrict voting rights, favoring Whites. For instance, some areas required land ownership to vote, although Blacks had never earned enough to buy property. Another tactic was the I.Q. test, where election judges would ask progressively harder questions until Black individuals failed, disqualifying them as voters.
In 1896, the Supreme Court sanctioned the legality of segregation in America, provided facilities for both races were "separate but equal." This created a divided society that rarely adhered to true equality. Across the South, Blacks were forced to dine at separate restaurants, stay in different motels, drink from distinct water fountains, and ride in separate train cars. Despite these accommodations often being substandard, crossing the color line could result in arrest for anyone, regardless of race.
By the mid-1950s, spurred in part by writers like Baldwin, both Blacks and Whites grew increasingly intolerant of discrimination. The 1954 Supreme Court ruling declared that "separate but equal" was inherently flawed, as it always left one side with inferior facilities. Consequently, public schools were ordered to be desegregated. In 1955, Rosa Parks, a modern-day hero of race relations, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a White man. The subsequent year-long bus boycott, which highlighted the dependency on Black passengers as well as White ones, brought international fame to the boycott's leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus stood with protesters to block nine Black students from entering a high school in Little Rock. In response, the President deployed National Guard troops to protect the students, demonstrating that the federal government would enforce equality, even if it meant opposing state authorities.
Literary Style
Setting
The backdrop of this novel—the impoverished area of New York known as Harlem, and more specifically the storefront church within the Harlem community—played a crucial role in the book's initial popularity. It offered intellectuals a glimpse into a world many were unfamiliar with. This setting might still attract readers to Go Tell It on the Mountain today, even though inner-city life is now well-documented by television. What makes this setting particularly significant is its deep connection to the characters' identities, influencing and being influenced by them. For example, the adult members of the Grimes family each arrived in New York for unique reasons.
Florence arrived first, thirty years prior, rebelling against the constraints imposed on her as a woman. Gabriel came to escape the deaths of his illegitimate son and his barren wife, while Elizabeth arrived with hope and love for Richard. The fact that these three distinct individuals end up in the same small neighborhood highlights the limited opportunities available to African-Americans. Additionally, their attendance at the Temple of the Fire Baptized, despite their different motivations (Florence out of despair, Gabriel for control, and Elizabeth with genuine religious devotion), underscores the limited options each character faces.
John is a true son of New York. He visits Central Park to feel triumphant while overlooking the sprawling city and goes to a rundown theater in Times Square to experience its darker side. However, he also connects with his rural roots at the local church, which is urban enough to have a bustling hospital across the street.
Flashback
The novel begins on a specific Saturday morning in 1935 but intertwines stories from the family's past, dating back to 1876, and even refers to earlier times—reaching back to John's grandmother Rachel on the plantation before the Civil War ended in 1865. Technically, a flashback occurs within the mind of the character it happens to and is presented "in scene"—meaning the narrative travels to the specific place and time of the flashback, rather than just summarizing past events. For instance, the scene where Rachel learned about the slaves' emancipation is not a flashback because it is recalled through Florence's memory of her mother's story. Similarly, Richard's death is not depicted as a flashback because the narrative only describes the evidence found by his landlady the next day. However, Gabriel's sermon at the Twenty-Four Elders Revival Meeting is presented as a flashback, detailed within his memory. The "Prayers of the Saints" section predominantly uses flashbacks but periodically returns to the main setting of the story, John's fourteenth birthday.
Stream of Consciousness
The final chapter of the book, "The Threshing-Floor," primarily utilizes a stream-of-consciousness technique. Thoughts are depicted as they flow through John's mind, without logic or sequence, mirroring his ecstatic experience on the church floor. While John's thoughts are not directly recorded, they are conveyed through a third-person narrator who interprets John's mental state. For example, it is improbable that John would use terms like "malicious" and "ironic" to describe the voice in his head.
Literary Techniques
Go Tell It on the Mountain utilizes numerous techniques typical of autobiographical fiction. The author's inherent understanding of the characters and their environment results in a deeper subjectivity for the characters. This is because an autobiographical author is more adept at directly exploring the inner thoughts of their characters. Consequently, readers experience the characters' stories from an internal perspective, creating a closer connection than what is typically found in more traditional, objective narratives.
Baldwin also frequently employs flashbacks, condensing his characters' entire lives into a single day through their recollections of past events.
Compare and Contrast
1935: Like much of the world, America was entrenched in a prolonged economic depression that began with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, and persisted into the early 1940s.
1953: The U.S. economy finally integrated returning World War II veterans, achieving the lowest unemployment rate since the war's end in 1945.
Today: The stock market hits new peaks every month, keeping production levels high and unemployment rates low.
1935: Adolph Hitler, who became Germany's chancellor two years prior, began exercising the absolute power that would lead to the extermination of millions of Jews under his regime's "Final Solution."
1953: Josef Stalin passed away. Having ruled the Soviet Union since 1928, his government is estimated to have killed as many millions of citizens as those lost in the Nazi Holocaust, though these figures remain unconfirmed.
Today: Government-perpetrated mass murders against various ethnic groups continue, including 250,000 killed in Bosnia in 1995 and 150,000 Tutsi civilians in Rwanda.
1935: Crime syndicates that rose to power during Prohibition (1920 to 1933) continued to clash with the government, turning criminals like Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Dutch Schultz into infamous legends.
1953: America was deep in the Cold War, with citizens suspected of Communist affiliations or associations at risk of being blacklisted and losing their jobs.
Today: Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the nation no longer fears Communist influences. Although alcohol is legal, the government continues its persistent "war on drugs."
1935: The Social Security Act was enacted to provide government assistance to senior citizens.
1953: The post-war prosperity led to a significant increase in the birth rate, creating the "Baby Boom" generation, comprising those born between 1947 and 1961.
Today: Government economists warn that without restructuring, the Social Security system could face bankruptcy when the baby boomer generation begins retiring in 2012.
Media Adaptations
James Baldwin, Author, a videocassette part of the Black Americans of Achievement series, released by Schlessinger Video in 1994.
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket, a videocassette distributed by California Newsreel in 1990.
My Childhood: Hubert Humphrey and James Baldwin. A 1964 motion picture available on videocassette from Benchmark Films, released in 1989.
The View From Here: A National Press Club Address by James Baldwin. An audio cassette offered by Spoken Arts, released in 1988.
James Baldwin: An Interview with Kay Bonetti, an audio cassette from the American Audio Prose Library, released in 1984.
James Baldwin, an audio cassette available from Tapes for Readers, released in 1979.
The Struggle by James Baldwin. A record album from Buddha Records, catalog number BDS2004, released in 1960.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Shirley Allen, "Religious Symbolism and Psychic Reality in Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain" in CLA Journal, Vol. XDC, No. 2, December 1975, pp. 173-99.
Richard K. Barksdale, "Temple of the Fire Baptized," in Phylon, Vol. 14, 1953, pp. 326-27.
Robert Bone, "James Baldwin," in The Negro Novel in America, rev. ed., Yale University Press, 1965, pp. 215-39.
Granville Hicks, "Go Tell It On The Mountain," in Literary Horizons: A Quarter Century of American Fiction, New York University Press, 1970, pp. 87-90.
James de Jongh, Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 5-33.
Edward Margolies, "The Negro Church, James Baldwin, and the Christian Vision," in Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1968, pp. 102-26.
J. Saunders Redding, "Go Tell It On The Mountain," in New York Herald Tribune Book Review, May 17, 1953, p. 5.
For Further Study
Robert A. Bone, "The Novels of James Baldwin," in Tri-Quarterly, Winter 1965, pp. 3-20.
Bone suggests that in Go Tell It On The Mountain, Baldwin "approaches the very essence of Negro experience" and presents a "psychic drama" of religious conversion.
Arna Bontemps, 100 Years of Negro Freedom, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1961.
At first glance, this book appears to be a primer for grade school children, but the author, Bontemps, was one of the most respected intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. This book is clear and straightforward, covering history lessons that are not often included in mainstream reading lists.
Jane Campbell, "Retreat into the Self: Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' and James Baldwin's 'Go Tell It On The Mountain'" in Mythic Black Fiction: The Transformation of History, University of Tennessee Press, 1986, pp. 87-110.
Compares confessional elements in both novels.
Richard Courage, "James Baldwin's 'Go Tell It On The Mountain': Voices of a People," in CLA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 4, June 1989, pp. 131-42.
Courage argues that the novel "highlights the role of the black church in maintaining a sense of communal identity."
Michael Fabre, "Fathers and Sons in James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain," in James Baldwin: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Kenneth Kinnamon, Prentice Hall, Inc., 1974, pp. 120-38.
Explores the religious and psychological symbolism of the novel.
Neil Fligstein, Going North: Migration of Blacks and Whites From the South, 1900-1950, Academic Press, 1981.
Fligstein, a sociologist, wrote this work for other academics, and it is filled with statistics and tables. However, the average student should be able to gain a good understanding of the abstract social dynamics that influence the characters in Baldwin's novel.
David E. Foster, '"Cause My House Fell Down': The Theme of the Fall in Baldwin's Novels," in Critique, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1971, pp. 50-62.
This article explores the theme of falling from grace in many of Baldwin's novels, including Go Tell It On The Mountain.
James R. Giles, "Religious Alienation and 'Homosexual Consciousness' in 'City of the Night' and 'Go Tell It On The Mountain'," in CLA Journal, Vol. 7, No. 3, March 1964, pp. 369-80.
Explores themes of religion and homosexuality in John Rechy's City of the Night and Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain.
Howard M. Harper, Jr., "James Baldwin Art or Propaganda" in Desperate Faith: A Study of Bellow, Salinger, Mailer, Baldwin, and Updike, University of North Carolina Press, 1967, pp. 137-61.
Investigates the concept of a fall from grace in several of Baldwin's works, including Go Tell It On The Mountain.
Marcus Klein, "James Baldwin: A Question of Identity," in After Alienation: American Novels in Mid-Century, World Publishing Company, 1962, pp. 147-95.
Analyzes the connection between maturation and identity in Go Tell It On The Mountain.
Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed Society, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
Covering a period beyond the novel—from the 1940s to the 1960s—Lemann examines the impact of the demographic shift on three cities: Chicago, Washington, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. While its relevance to Baldwin's novel is somewhat abstract, it aids in understanding the social conditions faced by the Grimes family in Harlem.
John R. May, "Images of Apocalypse in the Black Novel," in Renascence, Vol. 23, No. 1, Autumn, 1970, pp. 31-45.
This article delves into apocalyptic imagery in Go Tell It On The Mountain.
Therman B. O'Daniel, "James Baldwin: An Interpretive Study," in CLA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 37-47.
Examines themes of homosexuality and racism in Baldwin's novels, including Go Tell It On The Mountain.
Horace A. Porter, Stealing Fire: The Art and Protest of James Baldwin, Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
This book sets a high standard for Baldwin, freely critiquing his flaws while also offering high praise. It presents a well-researched portrait of Baldwin as a man of contradictions who drew from the best of White traditions while keeping his sympathies rooted in Black culture.