An Analysis of Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Analysis, Pages 5 (1165 words)

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In "Go Tell It on the Mountain", author James Baldwin describes the course of the fourteenth birthday of John Grimes in Harlem, 1935.

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Baldwin also uses extended flashback episodes to recount the lives of John's parents and aunt and to link this urban boy in the North to his slave grandmother in an earlier South. The first section follows John's thoughts, the second mostly his aunt's, the third his father's, the fourth his mother's, and the fifth again mostly John's. 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 John's parents and aunt and to link this urban boy in the North to his slave grandmother in an earlier South. The first section follows John's thoughts, the second mostly his aunt's, the third his father's, the fourth his mother's, and the fifth again mostly John's. The title "Go Tell It on the Mountain" comes from a Negro spiritual.

The novel is steeped in the language of the King James Bible, and the Bible is a constant presence in the characters' lives; thus, if the reader has a familiarity with Biblical stories then their understanding of the text is more enhanced. The biblical allusions even surfaces with the names of the characters. The names John, Gabriel, Elizabeth, Roy, and Elisha all are some form of biblical allusion. John, Elisha, Elizabeth, and Gabriel are all names of profound people in the Living Word.

The name Roy has its own significance to the Holy Bible, a significance which has to do will hope and a great ministry.

John turns 14 on the morning the story begins. Both attracted and repulsed by the church, his father, and everything his father represents, John is anguished and deeply confused. He longs to experience all the world has to offer, but he is terrified by sin. His name is a biblical name and it s the representation of four different characters in the good book. These characters are John the revealer who wrote revelations, as well as John the Baptist who paved the way for the Son of Man, also there was John the divine who wrote Saint John and last but not least there was John the Beloved who was the disciple. John Grimes seemed to have a bit of all four Johns in him and Gaines did an excellent job at showing his roundness. John at the end of the story realizes that he truly believes in the word of the Lord. This showed his divine side. He was the first born to his mother Elizabeth, meaning he came before the rest of his brothers just as John came before Christ. John in the story was a "disciples of Elisha, he looked up to him for advice and he wanted to be at the same spiritual level as he was. He may have fallen in love with Elisha but he still admired him as John the disciple loved Christ and all the disciples loved Christ.

Gabriel is a hard, religious man. Despite his pious mother's prayers and beatings, Gabriel was wild and sinful--until he was born again at the age of 21 and became a preacher. In a dream, God promised him that his descendents would bear His seal. He married Deborah, had an adulterous affair with Esther, and endured the early death of his unacknowledged son, Royal, from a distance. His son by Elizabeth, Roy, is his new hope. John, his stepson, must bear the brunt of Gabriel's sublimated wrath and guilt. In the good Book Gabriel was an archangel, the symbol of God's righteousness. Interesting enough Gabriel is not quite the symbol of righteousness, he had an affair, he beats his wife, and he despises his stepson.

Elizabeth was raised by her strict, religious, and unloving aunt; Elizabeth came north to be with her boyfriend, Richard. Richard killed himself, leaving her unwed and pregnant with John. She met Gabriel through his sister Florence, whom she had come to know at work. Gabriel offered her hope and a return to the true path. He promised to raise John as if the boy were his own. If Gabriel raised her up, he has also done much to undermine her, as she now begins to realize. In the living word Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist and in this story Elizabeth is the mother of John who has characteristics of John the Baptist. Elizabeth was a woman who did not know her true worth, she allowed a man who was mean, crude and evil to hit her and treat her as though she was worthless.

Roy is John's younger brother. He is outspoken and much less concerned with the metaphysical questions that plague John. He closely resembles his father, Gabriel, as he was in his younger days and also shares many traits--as well as a first name--with his half-brother Royal (Gabriel's unacknowledged son), whom he will never meet. His name was a derivative of his brother's, Royal, name. Royal was supposed to be Gabriel's promise from God. Royal represented the ministry and power through the Holy Spirit that Gabriel was supposed to receive from the Lord. When Royal died, Gabriel had lost hope of his dream but when Elizabeth gave birth to Royal, he saw hope for his life again.

Elisha is John's role model. Elisha is a young leader in the congregation and a saved man. He is the Reverend's nephew and is an extremely anointed preacher himself but he has faults just like He challenged eight-hundred and fifty false profits to prove that his God was the one true god and he killed off these profits. God provided for this man because he had a relationship with the Lord that his faith in his God and even then the Lord rescued him from his persecutors. Elisha is a symbol of the being consumed by a woman's wrath and losing your salvation because a woman was after you. In Gaines' book, Elisha was consumed by the temptation of a woman. Elisha didn't do anything with this girl yet but was exposed by his own uncle so that he could see the error of his ways. He was constantly taking the girl out and was acing in the "flesh" which is not the way a son of God should behave so he was exposed. Him being exposed he realized that he was better for it but his ministry was still nearly toppled for his involvement with the girl.

These names have such profound meanings behind them but Gaines does a magnificent job at deconstructing these names. Each character had some kind of resemblance to the characters in the bible but all had flaws that separated them from the divinity that their names projected. Even with these flaws Gaines still allowed some to reach a point where their life was almost as close to the characters in the Bible.