Coming out on the Mountain

Coming Out on the Mountain

James Baldwin was an African American writer born in the height of the Harlem Renaissance. He grew up with a mother and an abusive factory worker and minister for a father. He was junior minister for a while. Then around in his twenties in 1948 he left the United States for Europe. There he had much respect as an out African homosexual. In addition, it was in Europe where he wrote his first novel Go Tell it on the Mountain. Knowing a bit of his history this book is very autobiographical, and seems to be his coming out story, as he explains his life as a gay Christian in Harlem through the character John. In the book, everyone has his or her own skeleton in the closet. It is not only John who comes out in this story; John, Aunt Florence, Gabriel, Esther, and Elizabeth have their own hidden story.

The first character introduced is John Grimes. He is the oldest son in the Grimes family and on his 14th birthday realizes his own suppression. It is on that day that he ponders his sinfulness. “[H]e had sinned with his hands a sin that was hard to forgive. In the school lavatory, alone, thinking of boys, older, bigger, braver, who made bets with each other in himself a transformation of which he would never dare to speak. (Baldwin, 18-19) This was one of the thoughts that John has as he awoke seeing a naked woman in the ceiling that he was unphased of. He awakes having the fear of sin upon him. If he were a true sinner in his mind and the mind frame of his religion he would never be saved. He would never be like the light of his lustful eye, his religious teacher, Elisha, who is saved. John, out all the others, has intelligence and intellect. In which he grasps on his outing on the hill. In addition, with this intelligence along with eventually being “saved” he learns that he has courage and strength against the abusive Gabriel. When he is saved, he approaches the pulpit and finally speaks to Gabriel, swinging. “ I’m going to pray to God […] to keep me, and make me strong…..to stand….to stand against the enemy….against everything and everybody….that wants to cut down my soul.(207)” Johns story is that he is a saved gay boy with intelligence and the strength to take revenge.

Gabriel Grimes, the almighty father as he so presumes is by far the only man that does not come out. He is a sinner hiding behind the collar. “What they see is, […] is a poor man trying to serve the Lord. That’s my life. (44)” Is his description of himself in the beginning. He grew up a sinner, lived sinful, and will definitely like in I Love Lucy will have some explaining to do. Every time he has sinned, the next event in his life is a “sign of forgiveness from God.” After joining the ministry, he marries Deborah as a “sign.” After he sleeps with and leaves pregnant Esther, and goes on with the grief of the incident until Deborah’s dying day, he then goes north and marries single mother Elizabeth as a “sign.” He admits wrong but does not confess, and change. The only person who then comes out for him is his sister Florence. After receiving a letter from Deborah about Esther, Florence has no problem reporting to Gabriel that he is a fraud.

“No […] I ain’t changed. You ain’t changed neither. You still promising that you going to do better-and you think whatever you done already, what you are doing right at that minute, don’t count. Of all men I ever knew, you’s the man who ought to be hoping the Bible’s a lie-‘cause if that trumpet ever sounds, you going to spend eternity talking. (214-215)”

Gabriel’s story is that he is a sinner that abuses the power of the Bible.

Like John, his Aunt Florence has a vengeful side. To her Gabriel took everything for granted that she would kill to have. Education, good clothes, attention, meat, all went to Gabriel, for he was a man and would need all that when he grows up. This favoritism is what make Florence go up North and leave her brother, her dying mother, and her dear friend Deborah, mainly to get Gabriel out of his childish and make him grow up. As she opens the gate, she makes sure to have the last word. “If you ever see me again, […] I won’t be wearing rags like yours. (80)” Although, she doesn’t get to live on to the threat. She goes to New York and marries Frank, who acts much like Gabriel. Moreover, through him her drive for success comes in a fight between the two one evening.

“ I thought I married a man with some get up and go to him, who didn’t just want to be at the bottom all his life.[…] You ain’t got to be white to have some self-respect! You reckon I slave this house like I do so you and them common [Negros] can sit here every afternoon throwing ashes all over the floor. (86)”

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