FREE ESSAY ON THE FIRE NEXT TIME

THE FIRE NEXT TIME

The Fire Next Time 
James Baldwin's book The fire Next Time opens up an entirely new world to
most readers. It opens the reader to the harsh world of a black boy growing
into a man in the poor city slums and all of the issues that a black man has to
face. This book does more for the reader than any article published about the
black's living in the poor cities in terms of exposure for the reader. The
reason why it has this ability is how James Baldwin wrote it. He was able to
express all of himself in the essay form with a storytelling technique. Together
these two techniques combine to form a collection of essays on what
blackness means in America. What makes this form of writing nice for the
reader is that by combining many different essays you are able to learn about
many different areas of a black man's life. In his collection of essays there is a
light shined on the relationship between blacks and whites. Baldwin
throughout the book discusses the idea that to be successful in the world that
we live you have to live in a white world. This creates a problem because
then you have blacks who want to be successful but the whites will not
except them. Baldwin deconstructs the myths that surround blackness in
America and sets out as a possibility that blacks must learn to accept whites
but whites don't have to do the same. Even though he has these thoughts he is
not anti white. He understands that one day in this world whites and blacks
will have to come together and live as one in order to be successful as a
whole. A part of the book that he states this goes, In short we, the black and
white deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation-if we
are really, that is, to achieve our identity, our maturity, as men and women.
This is a very important part of the book because it shows the reader that the
author even though he has been suppressed by whites understands that one
day we have to live in unity. What does being black mean? According to
Baldwin, being black is unchangeable. It is a burden for a young person to
carry. Being black means that one is intended for a particular life, a life with
several disappointing outcomes. Part of his book portrays this idea perfectly.
You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced
because you were black and for no other reason. This shows that Baldwin
believes that being black means that you are stuck in one type of life with no
way out. This way of life is a brutal one as well. Baldwin brings up many
examples of this in the different essays that you read. One line he writes hits
you in the chest and makes you step back from the book and think for a
second. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity,
and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being.
For a man to write this about his race makes you really understand what he is
feeling and the power that he feels it with. Baldwin describes his own life
growing up in Harlem. The wages of sin were visible everywhere, in every
wine stained and urine-splashed hallway, in every clanging ambulance bell, in
every scar on the faces of the pimps and their whores, in every helpless little
newborn baby being brought into danger… This is something that you can
not be exposed to in any other type of writing besides Baldwin's for the mere
fact that his writing is in the form of storytelling and he has the ability to paint
a clear picture with this story telling. And you are truly able to see the life that
one is exposed to in the slums of Harlem. An issue that the author brings up in
the book is the work that a black man can do. He discusses how their
options are limited to the lower class for the mere fact that they are black.
You learn that his father was a preacher, and that James Baldwin himself is a
preacher. In one of the essays he explains how a young black man has to find
a gimmick to get into for work. Something that he can do well that will help
him make it in a white world. He mentions many lower class jobs like Prize
fighting since these are the only ones open to blacks. James states the reason
why he moved toward religion is that it gave him a sense of home, and a
place to express himself. But on the contrary religion gave him no peace.
After reading about a black man's options for work you learn how this is just
another huge mountain that they have to climb in their lives because of the fact
that they are black. The Fire Next Time is a book that teaches one about the
hidden world that no one wants to learn about- the poor slums of the city.
Baldwin teaches the reader about it by creating a picture of what he had to
go through just because he was black. Some authors may have held back in
some of the teaching by not being as crude in their description but Baldwin
did not. At points I wish that he wasn't so graphic in his descriptions but
looking back on the book as a whole it was a much better book then if he
had left things out. After getting through this book you really understand what
the black man had