Christianity In Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain

First, Baldwin is trying to convey through the novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain, that Christianity is very limiting. In the novel, Christianity limits a lot of the freedom that the characters can express or partake in. This theory can mostly be seen when analyzing the female characters. Christianity gave the female characters a very rigid and defined social role that affected their actions and behaviors throughout the novel. For example, Elizabeth was a main character throughout the whole novel but was seen mostly behind Gabriel and obeying to his every order. Elizabeth always stuck to Gabriel even though he treated her badly and did not always love John (Baldwin, 49). Also, these strict Christian social roles affected other female characters …show more content…
The novel mostly focused on the biblical teachings of Ham and Canaan who were deemed as inferior and in some cases associated with African Americans (Genesis 9-10). Baldwin begins to touch upon this subject in the last part of the book, “The Threshing Floor”, as John explains his flashbacks to his earlier years and his journey through salvation. For example, Baldwin hints at the fact that John had “looked at his father's hideous nakedness” and had considered that a sin, much like the biblical story of Ham and Noah (Baldwin, 232). This “sin” that John focuses on then leads him to question the curse that God had placed on Ham and if it still affected “all niggers”. This biblical teaching can be seen as perpetuating internalized racism in characters like Gabriel who believes that since God placed this curse on “niggers” then he himself is cursed for all time. This theory can also be seen in Florence who takes this internalized racism in a much personal sense than a religious one (Baldwin, 89). For example, Baldwin explains how Florence goes to “racial uplift meetings” and uses skin whitening cream in order to fit into the more socially desirable skin color at the time, which was a much whiter