In Go Tell It on the Mountain, author James Baldwin describes the course of the fourteenth birthday of John Grimes in Harlem, 1935. Baldwin also uses extended flashback episodes to recount the lives of Johns parents and aunt and to link this urban boy in the North to his slave grandmother in an earlier South. …
Summary The story begins on the morning of John Grimes fourteenth birthday, a Saturday in March 1935. John lives in Harlem with his father (Gabriel, an austere lay-preacher) his mother, Elizabeth; his younger brother, Roy; and his two younger sisters, Sarah and baby Ruth. Another sibling is on the way. The family is integrally involved …
Go Tell it on the Mountain – Part One: “The Seventh Day” Read More »
Summary John undergoes a terrifying hallucinatory experience of spiritual rebirth. In his visions, he struggles with his father, with his doubts and sins and fears, with strange sounds and horribly vivid, imagined sufferings. At last the ordeal ends when John catches what he believes to be the briefest glimpse of the Lord Himself. It is …
Go Tell it on the Mountain – Part Three: “The Threshing-Floor” Read More »
Summary Now its Gabriels turn to revisit his life through memory. He remembers his dying mothers eyes watching him through his drunken nihilism. He recalls the awesome moment of his rebirth in God, in his twenty-second year, walking home after a night of drunken lust. This was the beginning of a new life for him. …
Go Tell it on the Mountain – Part Two: “The Prayers of the Saints” – Gabriels Prayer Read More »
Summary As the congregation belts out a familiar hymn, it is time for Elizabeths extended flashback. When she was eight, her sickly mother died and her world changed; her aunt came and brought Elizabeth back with her to Maryland, effectively banishing Elizabeths beloved father from her life. She despised her aunt for taking her away, …
Go Tell it on the Mountain – Part Two: “The Prayers of the Saints” – Elizabeths Prayer Read More »
Summary Florence has come to her brothers church for the first time. She senses that Gabriel rejoices in her presence not because it proves her entry onto the path to salvation, but rather because it signifies that some hardship has come to her. She subdues her pride before him, sings, and kneels with the saints …
Go Tell it on the Mountain – Part Two: “The Prayers of the Saints” – “Florences Prayer” Read More »