John Grimes Fatherhood

Go Tell It On The Mountain is a fictionalized story that depicts John Grimes’ coming of age in a mostly segregated black community in Harlem, New York. John Grimes’ early childhood growing up has been largely marked by an indifferent and confused relationship with Gabriel (His Stepfather), whose violent and aggressive treatment toward him and the rest of the family has created a great disparity and dysfunctionality in their family. Gabriel’s constant berating and physical abuse toward his wife (Elizabeth) and kids have cause John Grimes to live everyday of his life in perpetual fear. In the first section of the novel a glimpse of Gabriel’s uncontrollable aggression is unmask to the readers. Upon returning home, John learns that Roy his younger brother has been stabbed during an alteration with his father, and also his mother in the process receives a beating while coming to her son’s rescue. The novel is structured in a different manner in which the story stretches back several decades into the lives of

Florence who is Gabriel’s sister enlightens us of Gabriel’s wasteful lifestyle of drinking and gambling. Despite the unwavering love and support he got as the only boy in a male-centered society; from his mother who had been a slave before she was freed during the civil war era. Next, through this section is “Gabriel’s Prayer” who reveals of how he became born again converting his life to Christianity at the age of twenty-one. He gradually began to gain an interest and love for religion which later triggered him to become a preacher. Moreover, Gabriel went on to provide an interpretation into a dream he had in the story to mean that God intended for him to marry Deborah. Followed in Gabriel’s account sheds light into his secretive affair with Ester during which she became pregnant with Royal who later on was stabbed and killed in a fight couple of years after his mother died from