1. Read the following excerpt from "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin:
All of my father's texts and songs, which I had decided were meaningless, were
arranged before me at his death like empty bottles, waiting to hold the meaning which
life would give them for me. This was his legacy: nothing is ever escaped. That bleakly
memorable morning I hated the unbelievable streets and the Negroes and whites who
had, equally, made them that way. But I knew that it was folly, as my father would have
said, this bitterness was folly. It was necessary to hold on to the things that mattered.
The dead man mattered, the new life mattered, blackness and whiteness did not
matter, to believe that they did was to acquiesce in one's own destruction. Hatred,
which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was
an immutable law.
It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which
seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally
without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are in the light of this idea, it goes
without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could
be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power that one must never, in one's
own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's
strength.
Analyze the author's message in this excerpt. How do the structure and style contribute to its power? In particular,
consider its use of societal commentary and figurative language. Be sure to include specific details from the text to
support your answer. (10 points)