A Sonatina

"Stranger in the Village" is like one of those classical sonatinas with multiple movements within the body of the piece.

Baldwin has one particular intent for his essay, but he seems to move through it in different stages with different tones. The first movement is quiet and explanatory. His sentences are clean, but rather choppy in rhythm. He says what he must for the sake of background, setting the reader up for the crescendo into the next movement: the village's reaction to him. The anger mounts in his tone--but only just so--and the reader can slowly feel Baldwin's veins start to pulse. --piano forte.

This is most evident when he talks about the American Negro's first "education"--that is, to "make people 'like' him." The "smile-and-the-world-smiles-with-you" routine did not work in Switzerland because "My smile was simply another unheard-of phenomenon which allowed them to see my teeth--they did not really see my smile and began to think that, should I take to snarling, no one would notice any difference." He goes on to say "there was yet no suggestion that I was human: I was simply a living a wonder." The tone of this sentence is layered with a matter of fact cover, yet obvious bitter undertones.

I think one way Baldwin navigates the turbulent political waters so well in this piece is through such sentence tone layering. A reader cannot deny the matter of fact cover--he is merely stating how the villagers' words and actions made him feel. Who are we to contest with that? Because he is simultaneously relating emotion, however, readers can easily pick up on his anger. Moreover, in sentences like "I knew that they did not mean to be unkind, and I know it now..." Baldwin immediately diffuses the reader's reaction to whatever it is he is going to say next. Again, Baldwin uses this tactic a few sentences later: "The children who shout Neger! have no way of knowing the eachoes this sound raises in me." He ends this diffusing paragraph with "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them." Fortissimo.

The third movement quickly follows this statement and is not quiet in the least. Baldwin's bitterness is no longer an undertone as this movement progresses. --Mezzo forte--He is blatant and angry and throws out those harsh words "white man," "black man," our "PC" culture hates to hear and say. But Baldwin gets away with it because, again, he is describing his emotion, his--specific, though universal--experience with the reader. The sentence "I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, astounded populace touching their hair and marveling at the color of their skin" prefaces the real meat of this movement: Baldwin's critique of the white man's attitude towards everyone and everything different from himself. Yet once again, Baldwin diffuses the explosive he threw over before it goes off. In the middle of accusing whites of having a superiority complex, he throws in a meek "whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me..." --Sforzando paino--The rest of this sentence is also explosive, but that beginning little "whereas I" conjures up empathy and makes the reader immediately side with Baldwin.

Through this description of Switzerland's naive villagers shouting "Neger!" at him--not unkindly, though--Baldwin makes a switch about half way through the essay. He crosses that "dreadful abyss" between the astonishment and naivety of Switzerland and the cruel, prejudice of America. --Fortissmo!-- He says "the abyss is experience, the American experience." This charged clause, however, is buried within the paragraph, allowing Baldwin to explain himself and again douse out the fuse.

This, I think, is his most blatant stylistic tactic--I'm sure there are many more I haven't yet picked up on--and probably his most effective. It is not as padded as a politician's speech, or apology for something crass or horrific, yet it is cushy with emotion. Emotion drives this essay, yet it also acts as a political airbag, allowing Baldwin to write about an objective topic subjectively.