These Common Themes

Go Tell it On the Mountain
by James Baldwin

Although my previous blogpost was about abusive father-son relationships, I have encountered yet another book with the same relationship embedded into the story. The father-son relationship in Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin is not a relationship that involves abuse to alcohol and excessive drinking, rather it deals with opprobrious preacher who expects the very best of his family, who beats his two sons and has no respect for his wife. The protagonist, John, talks of this sin he is constantly committing, yet I cannot tell what this sin is since he gives no mention of it in the story other than to say that he is committing it. Is it disobedience to his father, since his father is such a strict authoritative figure. His father, being a preacher, is of the belief that anyone who does not attend church and does not have faith in Jesus is doomed for eternity. As maturity and age afflict John, the realization of how much he loathes his father and all the hatred he has stored up for him over the years also is brought upon him.

John feels such abhorrence towards his father since his father has been abusive their whole lives; this cold, menacing embodiment of what John envisions as Satan. Since John loathes his father to such a degree, and since John's father is a preacher, John therefore associates the Church with his father and his heart hardens to the idea of Church, becoming a preacher, and following in his father's footsteps. The thought of such things repels him, almost makes him nauseous, for when people associate people that we dislike with certain things, such as church in this case, we are immediately revolted by those things as well.

Since I previously spoke about father-son relationships in my blogpost preceding this one, I ams becoming more familiar with them. What is it about these relationships that compels writers to write about them so frequently? I believe that father figures, or strong male figures, make a colossal impression on boys, especially when they're at a young age. This relationship is one I can only guess at, since there was such a vast number of female figures in my life to model myself after or to be repelled by, I can hardly keep count. But something about the male to male relationship seems all the more significant, seems to shape the lives of young men so much more than females and young women. Boys will love their mothers, yes, but it is their fathers they want to develop into, their fathers they want to model themselves after. Which is why I think having a weak father figure, or a male figure you despise, has all the more affect on who you are as a person and your likes and dislikes, such as John and his animosity towards the Church.