1. Read the following excerpt from "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin:
All of my father's texts and songs, which I had decided were meaningless, were
arranged before me at his death like empty bottles, waiting to hold the meaning
which life would give them for me. This was his legacy: nothing is ever escaped.
That bleakly memorable morning I hated the unbelievable streets and the
Negroes and whites who had, equally, made them that way. But I knew that it
was folly, as my father would have said, this bitterness was folly. It was
necessary to hold on to the things that mattered. The dead man mattered, the
new life mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter; to believe that they
did was to acquiesce in one's own destruction. Hatred, which could destroy so
much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law.
It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas
which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the
acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light
of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did
not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power:
that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace
but must fight them with all one's strength.
Analyze the author's message in this excerpt. How do the structure and style contribute to its power?
In particular, consider its use of societal commentary and figurative language. Be sure to include
specific details from the text to support your answer.