Vivian Gornick, author of The Situation and the Story writes, one of the struggles that comes with the creation of a literary persona is, “to know not only why one is speaking but who is speaking.”(8) A literary persona requires the author to dive into retrospection. This process of innering can help the author first understand who they are, and how their identity impacts the words on the page, no matter how they turn out to be written. Literary persona is the voice or role of a character, which can represent the thoughts of a writer, or a specific person that the writer wants to represent as their mouthpiece, evoking the collection of traits, beliefs, or attitudes, they chooses to convey.
Race is a significant factor to the construction of the personas in the works of James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston. Although persona can differ from work to work, the lived reality of being black in America has greatly influenced the way Baldwin and Hurston move through the world, and thus, the voice they echo throughout their writing. In the essays, Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin and How it Feels to be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston, both writers had impractical acknowledgements of their blackness. It did not take them a glance in the mirror to see a shade darker than fair, instead, as Baldwin writes, “to be a Negro meant, precisely that one was never looked at but was simply at the mercy of the reflexes the color of one’s skin caused in other people.” The self recognition of their blackness wasn’t as a result of the self, it was due to the way of others, particularly the way white people perceived and treated blackness.
Regardless of this common ground between the two authors, Baldwin and Hurston dealt with their blackness differently and the way they expressed it in their writings. How it Feels to be Colored Me and Notes of a Native Son are two narratives that are based on the suffering of the black race yet embody that suffering from opposite poles. Although Hurston’s literary persona has a loud, declarative voice in which her work gives remnants of spoken word and to some is a representation of black pride — Baldwin’s tranquil, observant persona is more effective. His ability to focus on a singular moment and detach himself from the incident of his father’s death brings himself to a new story that turns out to be his own recognition of his blackness in the world. This hooks the reader into watching Baldwin evolve ideologically and grow more in touch with his feelings.
Under the realm of black writers and artists during the era of the Harlem Renaissance, James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston were initially seen as outsiders. Their works challenged the standard of black literature and offered early insights into themes of authenticity politics of the ways one can be black, leaving it up to the reader to decide the “right” and “wrong” ways to be black, and specifically a black writer. Regardless of the notion that writing should at times be left alone for the sake of writing, the racial identities of both authors created resonance within their black audiences but also, disapproval. The difficult position of white writers during the Harlem Renaissance was addressed by many of them. James Weldon Johnson in “The Dilemma of the Negro Author” pointed to the problems that arise because of the “double audience” — white America and Black America. (Meisenhelder 3)
Beyond the racism Hurston endured from whites in the south, she was politically ostracized by many blacks. Unlike many black authors nurtured during the Harlem Renaissance period, Hurston rarely portrayed blacks as victims of the oppression and racist attitudes held by white society and instead represented blacks as autonomous beings, proud of their culture. This portrayal was undoubtedly influenced by her upbringing in Eatonville, FL, where she learned the opportunities that were present to all blacks within her community. Hurston’s willingness to cater her writing to white consumers created an anomaly in her literary persona compared to other authors such as Richard Wright whose persona within black literature embodied the dehumanizing effects of racism. While whites hailed her—the Times called Their Eyes Were Watching God “perfect …. Irresistible”—her black brethren scoffed. Wright, a Communist Party poet, working on what would be his 1940 classic Native Son, attacked Hurston’s ethnographic brilliance as a “minstrel technique” that entertains whites by keeping “the Negro” swinging “between laughter and tears.” Her greater crime, Wright concluded, was “her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought.” (Troy 1)
How It Feels to Be Colored Me briefly covers a broad swath of her life, functioning more as a reflection of her blackness rather than a strict narrative account of her life, this piece can be viewed as a mediation about her race. (Jones 66) Hurston’s confident persona in the essay works against her because it doesn’t demonstrate any dynamism in character, or shift in thought. She opens the essay with a powerful line that questions the authenticity of other’s blackness. “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was an Indian chief.” (Hurston 1) By isolating herself as the only black person to not have an Indian grandfather, it speaks to the hypocrisy within the black community that is supposed to have “race pride” yet trying to claim ethnicities other than their own. Hurston is unapologetically a black woman but not pride of her blackness, this is pride of herself — a being she finds separate from her race. However she ends the essay with the same self satisfaction, being unmoved by the discrimination she faces and focuses on her self love. While this may be admirable, Hurston’s self admiration is stagnant and deters the reader from exploring more of the layers to her character.
She refused to view African American life as impoverished or disadvantaged because to her, blackness is not an affliction as, “not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it.” (Hurston 2) The central idea of the essay is that racism cannot make anyone feel inferior unless he or she lets it. No one should be discriminated because of their race or past. The past cannot be changed, but what happens in the present determines the future, so why not make the best of it? Overall, Hurston’s bodaciousness can be felt as too forceful, and less connective to all audiences, regardless of race due to her inability to expose any flaws or insecurities.
Unlike Hurston, Baldwin unveils himself. His essays on America evoke time, place and emotions and his accuracy in reproducing an honest world filled with the half-truths and racism that make up American life. What makes Baldwin stand out most is his accuracy. After his death in 1987, Juan Williams from the Washington post wrote, “His accuracy was the key: In his works, the reader could resonate to the sounds of the street corner, as drawn by Baldwin, could feel the anger of black Americans so long denied a role in American life as Baldwin wrote about that anger. Black people reading Baldwin knew he wrote the truth. White people reading Baldwin sensed his truth about the lives of black people and the sins of a racist nation.” James Baldwin bore articulate witness to the unhappy consequences of American racial strife. His writing mirrored blacks’ aspirations, disappointments, and coping strategies in a hostile society. In his novels, plays, and essays alike, Baldwin explored the psychological implications of racism for both the oppressed and the oppressor. Best-sellers such as Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time acquainted wide audiences with his highly personal observations and his sense of urgency in the face of rising black bitterness.
Among his writing regarding bitterness, the essay Notes of a Native Son is a foundational piece describing his father’s bitter nature, and the birth of his own black bitterness. James Baldwin is vulnerable. At times heart-wrenching, at times angry. Sometimes he manipulates the reader by speaking seemingly clinically about unspeakable things. He is capable of all of that and more; the persona he chooses embodies the lens through which he has decided to present his essay indicated in many ways, including careful word choice, rhythm, tone, mood, and glimpses at what is true. Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, demonstrates his complex and unique relationship with his father and the distinctive effect of racial discrimination on the lives of both, (the father and the son). Initially, Baldwin accepts the fact that his father was only trying to look out for him, but deep down, he cannot help but feel that his father was imposing his thoughts and experiences on him. By the end of his reflection, Baldwin matures and discovers his father is within himself. The reader has the ability to watch Baldwin grow into himself and understand the implications behind what it means to be black in America. Beginning with the death of his father, Baldwin strings the reader along a vivid memory of his first act of deviance in response to outward racism.The apologetic tone of the waitress aroused rage within him because it was unlike the blunt hostility he had grown accustomed to, “this made me colder and more murderous than ever. I felt I had to do something with my hands. I wanted her to come close enough for me to get her neck between my hands.” (Baldwin 594) The cynical phrasing of this line reveals the crude thought process of the persona Baldwin presents in this text, struggling to contain the bitterness not only that his father passed down to him, but bitterness that is passed down to black people in America from white supremacy. After hurling the water mug at the waitress, Baldwin compares the frightening moment it to being involved in an automobile accident. “I lived it over and over and over again, the way one relives an automobile accident… I could not get over two facts, both equally difficult for the imagination to grasp, and one was that I could’ve been murdered. But the other was that I was ready to commit murder.” (Baldwin 594) This raw contemplation of his possible life outcome, constantly circulating through his mind makes the reader attached to him, viewing him not only but as an enraged human at the verge of committing a crime, but as a victim affected by the everyday discrimination against black people.