Fire Next Time
By Alaina Parish
Main Ideas
Religion: Baldwin believed Black people are Allah's creation, while Whites are the creation of the devil. He believed there would be a time the blacks could claim their destiny and remove White people from the world as a whole. He compared the Nation of Islam preachers and considered the differences between the Christian belief system.
Change: Baldwin believed in the biggest change the world could see. He believed blacks could somehow eliminate whites from the world. This, he believed could not be accomplished only because whites were not like to accept a change in lifestyles. He suggests this inability comes from a profound social/cultural unwillingness to face several realities.
Freedom: Throughout "My Dungeon Shook," the idea of freedom is important because the former slave speaks of emancipation. Also, the idea that children of Allah and the devil separating indicates freedom, in hopes to end the devil's domination by means of the theology of Islam. In a more positive aspect of freedom, Baldwin believed the delivery of white Americans from their imprisonment in myths of racial superiority could be ended and they could be free from the past and educated into a new, integrated maturity.
Media Connection
Rhetorical Devices
Diction: "It is this individual uncertainty on the part of the white American men and women, this inability to renew themselves at the fountain of their own lives, that make the discussion, let alone elucidation, of any conundrum--that is, any reality--so supremely difficult" (p. 43). Baldwin's elevated diction shows that he is an educated man that has a great vocabulary with which to express his ideas. Within this quote, he uses diction in saying that white America is out of touch with the rest of the world.
Pathos Appeal: "You were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black." This alone speaks of an emotional appeal, because though he doesn't say what future his nephew faced, because he says the cause was his race one can understand the intentions of the author were to be sad.