Civil Obedience by Henry David Thoreau, Note of the Native Son and The Dungeon Shook by James Baldwin - Literature review Example

James Baldwin tends to disagree with his father during his life but once when he experiences that all his sayings were true, he realizes how similar he is to him. The best way to describe the relationship with his father is “We had got on badly, partly because we shared, in our different fashions, the vice of stubborn pride.” (Armstrong 138) Initially, when Baldwin was in the place where blacks and whites shared understanding and mutually cooperated, he thought that his father's perception of the whites was wrong.

When he shifted to a place where blacks were merely treated like slaves, he found all his father's teachings true and precise. Anger, disturbance, and vulnerability developed in him and it eventually seemed like he was a 'replica' of his father. As by the end of the essay, he possessed the same qualities, beliefs, and virtues merely to become his father's duplicate. Whereas in the second essay "The Dungeon Shook", the same spirit of freedom, anger, disturbance prevail but by now, the writer has realized the worth of family values, therefore, advice his nephew.

Baldwin believes that Black Americans have been deprived of certain valuable things and cannot obtain their share of the American dream. He guided him and his purpose was to evoke the spirit of anger and pain amongst his nation and, therefore, by instilling his wisdom in his nephew, he wanted to enlighten him about the cruelty that persists in the society they dwelled in. He wanted his nephew to know that they should not trust the whites and try their best on individual and collective levels to succeed.

He believed that if one respects his native belonging, then only can succeed; by following the whites, there is merely no success. He said, "We cannot be free until they are free." (McBride 91) This describes how he believes independence and sovereignty are essential. Thus, Baldwin wrote to empower his nation and bring about the spirit of a nation among his people.