Tracing Trauma Through Abuse: An Exploration of John and Gabriel’s Relationship in Go Tell It on the Mountain Anonymous 12th Grade

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin artfully illuminates the struggles the main character John faces when his race, religion, and family structure all intersect on his fourteenth birthday. As John sits on the threshold between his childhood and his adolescence the tension in his relationship with his stepfather, Gabriel, is exposed. Throughout the novel the malicious hate between the two is striking as Baldwin’s direct prose discloses the intense malice that they wish upon each other. Even though Baldwin portrays Gabriel as a negligent and abusive father and husband, he still convinces the reader that he deserves empathy. The complicated character of Gabriel generates paradoxical emotions towards him as the reader learns to despise him because of how he emotionally and physically abuses his family while also understanding that his oppressive experience of being a black man in the South has deformed his sense of love, affection, and religion. The apparent wall of anger and fear that exists between John and Gabriel adds to the unclear understanding of Gabriel’s character. In Baldwin’s essay, Notes of a Native Son, he is able to reflect on his own troubled relationship with his father. This reflective piece sheds light...