James Baldwin's "Go Tell It On the Mountain"

Currently, I'm rereading James Baldwin's Go Tell it On the Mountain (1953), and while working on my paper for an upcoming conference, I noticed some things that I would like to talk about briefly here on the blog. I've written about Baldwin and the southern landscape on this blog before. Today, I want to expand upon that to a certain extent by looking at Florence and Deborah in Baldwin's first novel. Trudier Harris notes that fears of the South “whether manifested in lynching or rape, had a direct impact upon black bodies” (13). For Florence and Deborah, the fear of rape is what drives them, one to leave the South, and the other to become subjected to the power of Gabriel Grimes. 


Farah Jasmine Griffin, in "Who Set You Flowin'?: The African-American Migration Narrative, talks about Florence's decision to migrate North while only touching briefly on Deborah and her non-movement. Griffin notes that in order to better understand what caused individuals to migrate to the North, especially females, we need to pay attention to the non-economic motives. For Florence, this motive included the fear that she would be raped by her "master." At home, Florence's place within the family can be seen as nothing more than tenuous because she must give up her self for Gabriel's success. Gabriel becomes the one that their mother dotes on, pushing Florence to the side. The sexism she experiences at home only exacerbates what possibly awaits her at her job in the white man's house.

When she was twenty-six years old in 1900, Florence decided to leave for New York. As she worked as a "cook and serving-girl" in a white home, "her master proposed that she become his concubine" (emphasis added 75). At that moment. Florence chose to escape. She bought a train ticket for New York and left the very next day. One important aspect to note in the above quote is that Baldwin uses the term "master" for Florence's employer. This event occurred 35 years after the Civil War, but he still chooses that term here. Griffin astutely notes that "Baldwin uses this term to denote that the South from which Florence flees is the same South as that which enslaved her mother" (38). The only impetus for Florence escaping is the threat of sexual exploitation by her master, not the death of a family member by violence or monetary desires.  

Florence's friend Deborah actually experiences sexual trauma at the hands of white southerners, but she does not leave as a result. At sixteen, Deborah "had been taken away into the fields the night before by many white men, where they did things to her to make her cry and bleed" (69). After Deborah's father confronts the whites, they beat him and left him for dead. From that moment on, no one in the community would touch Deborah because they viewed her as unclean and a harlot. These experiences caused Deborah to believe that all men were only after her for her body, nothing more. She turned to the Lord, and eventually, after Gabriel's conversion, she marries the supposed man of God. Their relationship involved Deborah praising Gabriel, Gabriel accepting the praise, and not much more. In essence, Gabriel begins to lord over her with his power that purportedly came from God. Unlike Florence, though, Deborah stays in the South with Gabriel, never attempting to escape.

Along with Florence and Deborah, another woman experiences sexual exploitation. Esther, the woman who works with Gabriel and has an affair with him while he is married to Deborah, chooses to flee the South after her encounter with Gabriel leaves her pregnant. While Florence's and Deborah's instances of sexual subjugation occurred at the hands of white men, Esther's happened at the hands of an African American. The congress between Esther and Gabriel is consensual; however, once Gabriel finds out that Esther is pregnant and that she wants to leave, his power begins to show. He tries to reason that she is not pregnant and that she is just being naive, but Esther stands firm and starts to batter Gabriel's pride. She tells him that he needs to give her money so she can leave, or she will go through town telling everyone about "the Lord's anointed" and his actions. Gabriel acquiesces, and he steals the money Deborah had saved and gives it to Esther.

What makes Esther interesting is the fact that like Florence and Deborah she encounters sexual subjugation. Unlike Florence and Deborah, though, she experiences it not at the hands of whites but at the hands of an African American man. Along with this aspect, the results of her encounter with Gabriel mirror what happens with Florence. Even though Florence does not physically get raped, the mere thought of it causes her to migrate. The consensual congress of Esther and Gabriel causes her to flee because of the resulting pregnancy.

I'm not sure what to entirely make of this right now, but it's something that I noticed. What are your thoughts on this? Share them below.

Baldwin, James. Go Tell it On the Mountain. New York: Dell, 1985.
Griffin, Farah Jasmine. "Who Set You Flowin'?: The African-American Migration Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.