Anton Talarico | Definitive Analysis | James Baldwin's "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon"

Описание: James Baldwin uses "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon" as a vehicle to explore his own sense of purpose and struggle as a black man who felt the need to escape the confines of America and the grip of both its racist institutions and the racist culture, through the narrator who goes unnamed, but is given the stage name Chico, which translates to "a young, small boy" in Spanish.

This youth and sense of earnestness is significant given the contrast it strikes to the narrator himself, who spent his impressionable days in the American South during the Jim Crow era where he faced relentless police brutality and abuse. He left it all behind - taking his sister, Louise, with him - and now resides in Paris, France with his European, Swedish wife, Harriet, feeling the need to escape the prevalent racism back home.

But now it is time to return, and by taking his mixed race son, Paul with him, the stakes are higher and the journey filled with more confusion as he dares to bring his precious child back into the belly of the beast.

And while the morning brings us past a certain fear with the help of family and a deep memory, strength, what stays with us as the day lingers on, and hope eventually give way to evening, and a longing for something beautiful and irrational starts to bloom in the darkening shadows of Paris, France. Our narrator navigates his last night before returning to America fielding acquaintances from near and far, to his home and his heart, and he flees a familiar feeling in order to possess something he once possessed before: hope and understanding.

I hope you enjoy this episode of Definitive Analysis! This is one beautiful story, and deeply important, from the one and only James Baldwin.

Table of Contents:

Part 1:

Introduction to Narrator & Harriet - 0:00
A Superstar on Edge - 5:54
The Need to Leave America - 10:11
A Strong Bond between Harriet and Louise - 16:12
A Council of War - 23:45
France's Colonization of Tunisia/Algeria - 28:48
Breaking Free from a White Man's World - 36:24
A Convenient Window into Black Experiences - 41:28
Understanding Black Caricatures - 47:01
Vidal: Friend or Foe? - 53:02

Part 2:

Two Parallel Histories - 58:28
The Narrator's Father: A Source of Unforgotten Shame - 1:07:35
White People - 1:14:10
Charles de Gaulle - 1:19:04
Ada, from America: 1:26:07
Boona, the Retired Prize Fighter - 1:36:00
Boona, the Thief? - 1:42:45
Ada's Apology & Going Separate Ways - 1:50:34