The Stranger In The Village Poem Analysis

When one refers to ‘Stranger in the Village,’ with a meticulous objective, they find that the series of complexities does more than document the behaviors of an isolated village. Woven throughout the essay, there are chances to absorb a seemingly endless category of philosophies, from the consequences of seclusion in association to ignorance, to the discipline writing requires and the concerns standing beside it. However, there are specific points Baldwin makes that, for a lifetime, will remain thought-provoking. It is the attentively assembled role of ‘The Negro of America,’ that strikes a bone of relation and searches to enlighten his audience. Sequentially, what manifests from the conceptual themes of Baldwin’s interpretations is a symbolic

As a result, his statement acts as a predetermination put into motion by, of course, the color of his skin: “No black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village.” Under these circumstances, one can notice the hint towards a premise all too mundane for Black Americans— a loathsome self-awareness. To clarify; from the moment of birth, a Negro citizen is made absurdly alert of the fact that, they are indeed, black. The pigment of their skin is to the world this oddity, carrying on a speculation that will seemingly never cease. It is so constant, that the mere idea of the absence of blackness prompts a state of awe: “It did not occur to me— possibly because I’m American— that there could be people anywhere who had never seen a Negro.” Black skin, black culture, and black people are perceived as some earth-shattering exhibition. Whether the instance be discharged of fascination: “All of the physical characteristics of the Negro…were nothing less than miraculous… in the eyes of the village people,” or maliciousness: “…which had caused me, in America, a very different and almost forgotten pain…” the very

It takes the form of various guises, however with a similar intent each time. To elaborate, Baldwin makes a hauntingly accurate statement in regards to the influence of historic events: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” As one comes to wonder how the burdens of racial inequality appear slow to evolve permanent solutions (that have the quantity to reeducate the oppressive and free the oppressed), we might remember the tendencies of human nature in reference to past neglects. In short, the reason the African American citizen continues to feel such a slow growth of embellishment, is due to the archival power instilled, by European, and now American, culture. The dominance and simplicity of the white community fails to acknowledge the perverse nature of their ancestors by, firstly, stripping the African American of a concretely identified lineage. What Baldwin suggests— that the American Negro’s baptism was reshaped by European intrusion— adds further point to the indication: “The most illiterate among them is related, in a way I am not, to Dante, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, etc….” Even though African culture was not ‘lost,’ so to speak, the idea of cherishing origins in a similar fashion appeared dismantled: “… there are Haitians able to trace their ancestry back to African Kings, but any American Negro wishing to go back so far will find his journey through time abruptly arrested by the