The Story Archive

Go Tell It on the Mountain

James Baldwin · 1953 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

John Grimes turns fourteen in Harlem in 1935 and spends the day weighing the pulpit his stepfather rules against the wider, dirtier city downtown. At the Saturday night tarry service the prayers of his aunt, his mother and Gabriel open backward into the Southern lives that produced them. Baldwin's first novel, drawn from his own years as a boy preacher and written against the protest fiction he had just attacked in print.

Open Go Tell It on the Mountain in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

Attributes

Genre
Coming-of-AgePsychological
Theme
Faith & DoubtRace & IdentityComing of AgeGuilt & ConscienceIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
InnocentEverymanScapegoat
Plot structure
Single DayBildungsromanNonlinear / Fractured
Symbol / motif
The Cross / AltarThe CityLight & Dark
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
RealistLyrical
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues