notes of a native son essay analysis

Notes of a Native Son

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Summary and Study Guide

Notes of a Native Son is a collection of nonfiction essays by James Baldwin . Baldwin originally published the essays individually in various literary and cultural commentary magazines between 1948 and 1955. The Beacon Press first republished the essays as Notes of a Native Son in 1955. This study guide refers to the 2012 Beacon Press edition of Notes of a Native Son . Citations to page numbers, however, come from the volume The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985 , published by St. Martin’s/Marek in 1985 (hardback first edition), which includes all of the essays curated in Notes of a Native Son .

With the publication of Notes of a Native Son , along with his first novel Go Tell It on The Mountain , Baldwin catapulted into the national spotlight as a major literary figure. His rise coincided with the emergence of White liberal support for civil rights, and the White press came to see him as one of the leading voices of Black America. As this White support for civil rights waned by the beginning of the 1970s, Baldwin was deemed no longer relevant by the mainstream society, while Black readers would become more devoted to his later work.

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Notes of a Native Son established Baldwin as a major essayist. All of his essays amount to meditations on race and reflections on slavery’s ongoing repercussions for human connection today. He offers these meditations by discussing the most mundane things that everyone can relate to—death, love, family, popular culture, fear, and desire. Baldwin’s essays closely connect to his own lived experience—which was both typical and atypical for a Black person in mid-twentieth century America. He grew up poor in Harlem, exposed to many of the cultural institutions central to that historic Black neighborhood in New York City. He also had an inimitable talent and drive for writing about the human condition as he experienced it. This led him to travel to Paris to find his way as a writer. While most Black people were not able to go this route, Baldwin was following a path laid out by Black writers and artists in the generations immediately preceding his. The New Negro Movement of the 1920s was also known as the Harlem Renaissance because Harlem was in many ways the cultural epicenter of this major development in Black history.

In “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Baldwin criticizes Uncle Tom’s Cabin , coining it as a “protest novel,” a uniquely American literary genre . While the intention of the genre is to help the oppressed, he believes the novel perpetuates the agenda of White liberals using stock characters that don’t accurately portray the experiences of slaves as complex human beings. Baldwin explores another novel of this genre, Native Son , in “Many Thousands Gone.” The title of the essay references the deaths of thousands of slaves, and Baldwin argues that the novel, and society, refuses to move past slavery, and the Black community alienates Black people who try to overcome segregation.

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In “Carmen Jones: The Dark is Light Enough,” Baldwin criticizes the musical film Carmen Jones , which took the plot from the opera Carmen and gave it an all-Black cast. Baldwin points out that the American public tends to sexualize the Black body, and the film doesn’t better the opera’s message. He also notes that the actors are all very light-skinned, making them “light enough” for Hollywood.

In “The Harlem Ghetto,” Baldwin portrays his neighborhood in New York City, along with the racial oppression therein, and he considers that interracial understanding might be possible. In “Journey to Atlanta,” he tells the story of his brother’s quartet, The Melodeers , whom the Progressive Party sponsored, but then abandoned in Atlanta. Baldwin points out the party’s attempt to gain the favor of Black voters, though they had no interest in helping the Black community.  

“Notes of a Native Son” discusses Baldwin’s father’s life history and death, their strained relationship, and the generational pain that caused his father to be distant from his family. “Encounter on the Seine,” centers on the interactions between Black Americans, White Americans, Black Africans, and Black American entertainers in Paris. Baldwin suggests that Black Americans, displaced by slavery, have no heritage or roots as do Europeans. In “A Question of Identity,” Baldwin posits that Americans’ sense of time, understanding of society’s limitations, and skewed concept of freedom, leave American students in Europe without a sense of identity.

“Equal in Paris” tells the story of Baldwin’s arrest for using a friend’s bedsheet, which the friend had stolen from a hotel. Baldwin notes that his jailers were no better or worse than their American counterparts. In “Stranger in the Village,” Baldwin relates how the people of a Swiss village, who had never seen a Black person, treated him as a novelty—they did not intend to be unkind, as a contemporary White American might, but their reactions were dehumanizing. 

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Coming of Age — Literary Analysis Of James Baldwin’s Notes Of A Native Son

Literary Analysis of James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son

• Categories: Coming of Age Literary Criticism

About this sample

Words: 1532 |

Published: Dec 16, 2021

Words: 1532 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Works Cited

• Baldwin, James. Notes of a native son. No. 39. Beacon Press, 1984.
• Baldwin, James. Notes of a native son. Royal Blind Society of New South Wales., 1998.
• Seresin, Indiana. 'Notes of a Native Son Notes of a Native Son.' LitCharts.LitCharts LLC, 6 Jun 2017. Web. 8 May 2019
• Margolies, Edward. 'Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors.' (1968).

Should follow an “upside down” triangle format, meaning, the writer should start off broad and introduce the text and author or topic being discussed, and then get more specific to the thesis statement.

Provides a foundational overview, outlining the historical context and introducing key information that will be further explored in the essay, setting the stage for the argument to follow.

Cornerstone of the essay, presenting the central argument that will be elaborated upon and supported with evidence and analysis throughout the rest of the paper.

The topic sentence serves as the main point or focus of a paragraph in an essay, summarizing the key idea that will be discussed in that paragraph.

The body of each paragraph builds an argument in support of the topic sentence, citing information from sources as evidence.

After each piece of evidence is provided, the author should explain HOW and WHY the evidence supports the claim.

Should follow a right side up triangle format, meaning, specifics should be mentioned first such as restating the thesis, and then get more broad about the topic at hand. Lastly, leave the reader with something to think about and ponder once they are done reading.

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Notes of a Native Son

By james baldwin, notes of a native son summary and analysis of autobiographical notes.

At the time when he wrote these “Autobiographical Notes,” James Baldwin was 31 years old. He begins by describing his childhood reading, which included Harriet Beecher Stowe ’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities . Because people around him insisted he read the Bible, he resisted reading it. Baldwin’s first publication came out when he was around 12 years old. It was a piece about the left-wing Spanish Revolution in 1936, but it was censored in the church newspaper. Baldwin also received encouragement for his writing, as when New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia sent him a letter of congratulations and when he was awarded a Eugene F. Saxton Fellowship at 21.

In his twenties, Baldwin began living in the Village (i.e., the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan). He began writing book reviews, which he remarks were “mostly as it turned out, about the Negro problem, concerning which the color of my skin made me automatically an expert.” Tired of this situation, Baldwin went to France. This is where he finished his semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953).

Baldwin describes how difficult it is to be a writer, saying that it sometimes feels like the whole world conspires against him. Because the world does not care about the writer’s talent, one has to find other ways to feel valuable. Baldwin writes that, for him, race represented both the challenge to and the reward for being a writer: “[F]inally, I suppose, the most difficult (and most rewarding) thing in my life has been the fact that I was born a Negro and was forced, therefore, to effect some kind of truce with this reality.” He had to grapple with race before he could move onto other topics. Race affects everyone in the United States, he argues. One can only understand it by digging into the “[t]he history, traditions, customs, the moral assumptions and preoccupations of the country.” He argues that race is central to the works of William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Ralph Ellison, and many others. Making reference to Ernest Hemingway, Baldwin writes that his primary responsibility as a writer is to “get [his] work done.” He ends by stating: “I want to be an honest man and a good writer.”

Baldwin introduces his life to the reader by discussing his literary influences, what it means to be a black writer in America, and his principles for creating good and honest writing. Baldwin’s influences are wide-ranging. In trying to describe his style, he writes: “I hazard that the King James Bible, the rhetoric of the storefront churches, something ironic and violent and perpetually understated in Negro speech—and something of Dickens's love for bravura—have something to do with me today, but I wouldn't stake my life on it.” Though Baldwin earlier states that he avoided reading the Bible, here he admits that its language influenced his writing (after all, as a teenager he worked briefly as a preacher) along with everyday black speech and nineteenth-century novelists like Dickens.

Baldwin also argues that being a black writer in America means that one approaches the cultural heritage of Europe and North America differently. He describes himself as a “bastard of the West.” Having his family roots not in Europe but in Africa means that he approaches everything from Shakespeare to Bach, the Chartres Cathedral to the Empire State Building differently. “These were not really my creations, they did not contain my history.” While the black writer is fully knowledgeable about these traditions, he is separated from them. “This was not my heritage,” Baldwin writes. To live within a tradition while also being distant from it is a situation particular to the black writer. Many of the themes in this book center on this question of the black writer’s position in the world, which Baldwin describes here as a lack of place.

Another challenge of being a black writer, according to Baldwin, is that there is so much written about the “Negro problem.” In terms of racism in America, merely compiling information is not enough to transform things. In fact, the assumption that one has solved something simply through reading can also be dangerous. However, the writer’s job, according to Baldwin, is to dig deep into the roots of problems and social issues: “It is part of the business of the writer—as I see it—to examine attitudes, to go beneath the surface, to tap the source.” Even so, Baldwin argues that the issue of race creates a particularly difficult challenge for the black writer. To be a good writer one must build on one’s personal experiences. However, being black in America means being prevented from looking too closely at one’s own experiences because the hate and fear one experiences can be so overwhelming. In this way, Baldwin states here, the task of the black writer is doubly difficult.

Notes of a Native Son Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Notes of a Native Son is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Note of a Native Son by James

This is really asking for your opinion. I don't know what meant something to you. It is a personal question.

In what month and year do the events of the essay take place?

Notes of a Native Son is a collection of essays written and published by the African-American author James Baldwin. Your question depends on which essay you are referring to.

What is the author’s goal in this book? And what kind of effect does he want his book to have in the world?

Baldwin believes that one cannot understand America without understanding race. Yet this does not only mean looking at the experiences of African Americans, though this is crucial. Baldwin argues that the racial system in America (the history of...

Study Guide for Notes of a Native Son

Notes of a Native Son study guide contains a biography of James Baldwin, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Notes of a Native Son
• Notes of a Native Son Summary
• Character List

Essays for Notes of a Native Son

Notes of a Native Son essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin.

• The Identity Crisis in James Baldwin’s Nonfiction and in Giovanni’s Room (1956)

Lesson Plan for Notes of a Native Son

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Notes of a Native Son
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Notes of a Native Son Bibliography

Notes of a Native Son

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