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.