James Baldwin

Our most recently read Baldwin texts have invoked the dead to investigate the psychic life of characters who live in the aftermath of great personal and/or historical tragedy. You may interpret this through his use of flashbacks, memory, haunting, and shifting grammatical tenses. Select one text where the dead return or are invoked (Another Country, Blues for Mister Charlie, or No Name in the Street) and try to describe how and why Baldwin brings them back. You might also consider how these figures alter/impact the lives of the living.