In the essay Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin talks about his father and about his death which took place in 1943. Baldwin talks about his father, a man who was born while his parents were still slaves. Baldwin also notes that his father had troubles connecting with his children who were scared of the man.
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Notes of a Native Son, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Baldwin’s father died in 1943, a few hours before his last child was born. After his father’s funeral, which took place on Baldwin’s birthday, a race riot broke out in Harlem.
Notes of a Native Son is a non-fiction book by James Baldwin.It was his first non-fiction book, and was published in 1955. The volume collects ten of Baldwin's essays, which had previously appeared in such magazines as Harper's Magazine, Partisan Review, and The New Leader.The essays mostly tackle issues of race in America and Europe.
James Baldwin's collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son, with the individual essays having been originally written during the 1940s and 1950s, gives readers a thoughtful commentary on the social environment in the United States in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Through the eyes and mind of one of America's most effective essayists, the conditions of being an African American living.