How Does Baldwin Use Figurative Language In Go Tell It On The Mountain

If you were mentally and physically abused about pursuing a life you never wanted by a selfish father who tortured you mentally to make you live out a sinless life because he couldn’t do it himself. John lived through this as his father who seemed to hate himself enforced his religious ideas on John who just needed a loving father who would accept him but his father’s prideful personality led John to be chained to the idea of being who his father wants him to be and under the influence that his father was his God. Baldwin in Go Tell It on the Mountain employs the use of motif, and figurative language to highlight the harsh reality of being queer in a religious environment. Baldwin shows how hypocritical the Christian community is and how rather

(P. 112) Baldwin’s use of figurative language gives words and phrases two different meanings as using the context of the church we can see his true meaning. Gabriel saying “New condition” can be inferred as his new enlightenment and this ties to the hypocrisy of the church as many do what they please, drink, smoke, and party yet when they feel guilty they seek God and look to repent. This is a big thing adults do which shows how some disciples aren’t truly committed to God and only convert in search of something; looking to cure their tainted and dirty hearts. When children try to live their life and have a little fun as much as children want to have fun, society and the church makes these rules for them and they can’t do anything without the permission of the church yet the adults do it. It makes them hypocrites as they can’t even do what they set themselves to do and not sin yet they want to force their “right ideas' on the younger children while also dehumanizing them. Not everything is sinful but lying to yourself and manipulating others to do things you can’t even do

James Baldwin fought these views and he didn’t do it physically he did it through his beautiful writing and his many books in which he highlighted the hypocrisy the Christian community is built on and their egomaniac personalities for only caring about themselves and influencing young children. Baldwin in (“Time to tell” By Dennis Ray Knight) Critiques the construction of homosexuality as a crime, a mental disorder, and an immoral condition, Baldwin had a gift of telling people what they needed to hear not what they wanted to hear. Baldwin used John to tell his own story of dealing with religious persecution while also highlighting the big hypocrisy that happens behind the church’s closed doors, James Baldwin used John grimes to show how the church prioritizes teaching young kids that homosexuality is a sin and shouldn’t be crossing kids mind rather than teaching the parents how to be there for their children and taking care of them. Baldwin doesn’t only highlight the struggles of living in a religious household but also in an African-American household. Baldwin in his novel attempts to confront and expose the effects of the pentecostal Church’s oppression of, and disdain for, members who were considered sexually impure and whose choices were seen as sinful and unholy.