Analytical Summary Of Rhetorical Analysis Of Notes Of A Native Son

In James Baldwin’s essay, Notes of A Native Son, he clearly makes the point that hate destroys. Over the course of the essay, James Baldwin uses inductive reasoning by stating examples of how terrible it was growing up as a black man in the 1950’s, including how he almost got beat up when he was with a friend, how he was refused service at a restaurant, and eventually, the violent mob that he encountered. He states during his essay, “hatred itself became an exhaustive and self-destructive force” to tell his audience about his relationship with hatred.This organizational pattern of providing evidence and then making a conclusion is the most effective method for Baldwin because his audience should be surprised about what Baldwin learned. The knowledge that

Knowing that Baldwin was a black man from Harlem, one can assume he had put up with discrimination. He describes his relationship with his father saying, “I had not known my father very well” and this explains why he never learned to deal with hatred, and let it eat him up like it did to his father. His father was also very religious, and consequently, Baldwin saw Christianity, in which he grew up, as a mechanism by which African Americans channeled their desire for revenge against white oppressors. By describing his background in this fashion, he is able to gain empathy, credibility, and a large sense of ethos from his readers. Baldwin’s pathos is seen in his pure unadulterated hatred of white people. One example is when he claims,“I hated her for her white face… I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck between my hands”. With his thoughts stated in his work, the reader is better able to understand if not fully understand why James Baldwin is writing about such a thing. Another example is when he writes, “perhaps poison should be fought with poison”. His hatred is so strong that the audience is almost able to sympathise with his emotions even if they