Confinements

By: Natalia Fonseca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp4PbwqNdwo

The Merriam Webster dictionary has many definitions for what the word “arena” constitutes. It can be “an enclosed area used for public entertainment, a place or situation for controversy, or a sphere of interest, activity, or competition”. It seems that all three definitions are valid. We can relate Baldwin’s claim that in a sense, the Negro is a purpose of public entertainment, but not that of recreation and fun. It is a form of dark entertainment where control and coerced social image are the protagonist, and at the slightest mist of rebel, the audience is shaken out of its seats. It is entertainment that morphs into a daily purpose of social life, always vigilant to maintain everything within the lines. This ward keeps white American minds occupied and alert. It is clearly a situation of controversy, where talking about the Negro is mentioning a shameful, but indeed undeniable and form-shaping component of American history. It is a sphere of interest, activity and competition due to its palpable and constant nature. Baldwin states on page 25, “It must be checked, even though it cannot be cured” is an unexpected; yet exact metaphor to the mentality of the White American. A cancer is a burden, and nevertheless, the mystery of the body destroying itself from within, just like American society.

According to Baldwin on page 40, “Native Son finds itself at length so trapped by the American image of Negro life and by the American necessity to find the ray of hope that it cannot pursue its own implications”. Baldwin argues that the limitations of Native Son to portray the Negro in its full reality are due to the attachment to the persistent social image constructed by the white Americans. This is an image where no speck of Negro culture, ranging from his music, vernacular, food, customs, can constitute this framework. If it where to make its way, it would eternally collapse the collectiveness of the white American “treasure”.  It seems that Wright cannot conduct his way out of this “enclosed area”, and must therefore adapt the Negro to their guidelines in order to redeem him. Bigger Thomas is confined to the labels of “herald of disaster”, an imminent sign of danger. Baldwin argues that instead, he should be given, along with his fellow troopers, the right to claim a grudge that can be fairly held.  

The Negro is a dark construction embedded in the white masses. He is not thought of in a profound sentiment, in the analytical aspect of what constitutes a person. Instead, all he is referred to are numbers that are overrepresented to induce fear towards him, and to repel him from the rectangles of society that have been tightly riveted.

Baldwin expressed the sentiment of numbering through particular metaphors. As mentioned before, the comparison to a cancer is very accurate. Baldwin points out on page 26 another interesting contradiction, “Today, to be sure, we know that the Negro is not biologically or mentally inferior…” He continues, “…truth that can be easily explained or even defended by the social sciences. Yet, in our most recent war, his blood was segregated as was, for the most part, his person.” In society, people live and die for the tangible facts; it seems to be the definer of life itself, what exists and what doesn’t. But at the end, and considering situations like this, where it is known what is true, that the Negro is not a stereotype or a statistic, people always choose to believe what they want to believe in. They choose to outcast him, because the facts are rebellious.

It has been, not handed, but coerced in him, the guidelines of a conduct. The social pattern, which must be respected for the selfish purpose of chaos avoidance, for the conformity and triumph of a race, considered superior by itself. White Americans have defined, without consulting, what an American is. Baldwin states on page 29, “The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.” It seems to be that society revolves around either fitting in or going home. But for the Negro there is no other home, he has been cursed with an estranged land, far away from his “jungles” that years ago lost their home-ness. This can be observed in the efforts of the American Colonization Society to reincorporate him, when denied of citizenship rights in the US, to his motherland. Within the range of adaptation issues, he has bloody confrontations with the native Africans, sending yet another clear sign of rejection. Back to the land where he can call it more of a home, he is barricaded with no options, but to dispose the chants of his culture and instead, quietly cherish what he truly is while pretending a blank face. 

I also came to notice Baldwin’s interesting word choice in one particular phrase. On page 32, Baldwin writes, “…it was one of the last of those angry productions, encountered in the late twenties and all throughout the thirties, dealing with the inequities of the social structure of America.” The word “those” gives the phrase a sense of mockery and distance, as if “those angry productions” that abounded almost two decades, were like city lights, there to illuminate the road but everybody taking them for granted. It would have sounded much more imposing if he would have replaced those for the, giving those productions more authority. Especially considering the density of the 20’s and 30’s, shifting from the loudest roar of society to the Great Depression. They were very paradoxical times for the Negro. Life became harder, yet, cultural expression through the Harlem Renaissance gave way to the increased recognition of talent such as in the case of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. Nevertheless, Baldwin always has a purpose.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arena

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance#Musicians.2FComposers

http://mtungsten.freeservers.com/