In general, Baldwin is reminding us of how important society is in defining our individual potential – more of then not setting limits for us. Notably, the lead figure in “Going to Meet the Man” is a white sheriff who is incapable of having sex with his wife without remembering an act of racial violence he witnessed.
I was reminded of The Dubliners in the way Baldwin progressively orders these stories from young to old – starting with vibrancy, curiosity, and potential and ending with impotence. I hesitate to say it was worse as in Baldwin’s mind the urban racism he wanted to describe was no less debilitation, brutal, or (as in the case of police repression) institutionalized.Īll eight stories are fascinating and provide insights into American racism from different ages and points of view. It is these experiences that were so central to the lives of Northern blacks like Baldwin, whose families escaped the more formal discrimination of the South.
A common theme in Baldwin’s work is the daily-lived experience of racism in 20th century America that goes beyond the legal discrimination of Jim Crow. The Library of America volume of James’ Baldwin’s fiction ends with his 1965 short story collection Going to Meet the Man.
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