Character Analysis: Go Tell It On The Mountain

In "Go Tell It on the Mountain," the section titled "Elizabeth's Prayer," Elizabeth tells her story of growing up and describes her evolution of her perspective about her identity and the struggles she faced in defining her place in the world around her. Of these identity struggles, the ones that play major roles are her feelings toward her mother, father, and her aunt, and the outcomes that these feelings have on her life, as well as the parallels of these family members Elizabeth sees in her present life, and the role these feelings play in her changing perspective about her identity and how she feels about it. Elizabeth’s identity struggle hails from difficulties with her mother. Early in her life, Elizabeth loses her mother, a disaster that at the time, had not affected her the way it should have. This is because she believed that her mother did not love her because of her darker skin tone and because she felt that she wasn’t as beautiful as her mother. These feelings, and rather absence of feelings as well, begin at this young age as she starts finding it difficult to put a perspective on her identity when she is unable to even …show more content…
These experiences and the feelings that accompany them help Elizabeth to start learning her identity, how she feels about it, as well as learning the type of person she believes she is, whether it truly defines her or not. Her identity struggles help define Elizabeth’s evolution of her perspective about her true identity, and the struggles she faced in defining her place in the