Charles Darwin Chapter 1 Commentary

In this passage we begin to really understand the character of john and his account for what life is and more importantly a description of what he sees as being important as well as giving a clear image of everything that he doesn't want to be It is an account of him on the morning of his birthday recalling the memory of sinning with his own hands in the bathroom of the school. This is a reflection of himself and allows us to see him in a way that makes him seem all too human by showing who he truly is, while also wishing that he was something that he wasn't.
The first line of this passage starts as a continuation from the paragraph above, this is done to show that it is the same thought and it is being looked at more in detail. It comes of
clear from the beginning that the main point of this paragraph is to go more in depth to johns feeling on sinning. In the first line James Baldwin also use imagery very well bringing us into the darkness of the church on a saturday evening. He uses a semicolon to bring in more detail to the metaphor of the church, while also expanding to allow us to experience the presents of the church with all of our senses. It also goes into the process he is going though in the church from sweeping to overturning the chairs. In the second sentence it goes back to his thoughts as he is moving around the tabernacle which is suppose to the dwelling of the presents of god and one of the holiest places. It is the idea of god that is present in his mind as he thinks of his sin. In the second part of the sentence it goes into saying what the tabernacles meant and what the presents represented, stating that it could hate and love and fear. This is the example of what god is in the eyes of john. This is related to the curses of john in the next sentence and shows the depth in which john is feeling his sin, feeling as if he was cursed. He then goes on to explaining how roy acts with these curses he uses a colon to indicate the transition between the clause about him and about the action of roy going into detail about how he acts when he helped clean the church and how the curses made him act with aggression and anger in the presence of the church and in front of jesus. From this example he goes back to how it made John feel and it seems as if he is stuck in the same situation as roy and more over how he felt that the placards were judging him, justifying that the only way to pay for his sin was death. In the next line he goes into the resistance of God's power and he uses very descriptive words such as darkness and heatedness which help to show the power of his resistance to the power that is suppose to rule everything in his life. Using another semicolon to separate the two clauses on being the big picture and the other being a description of the people as they come to pray to the all powerful god. The passage end with the last two sentences being very strong and powerful words. Starting with the shortest and most clear sentence in the whole passage that he had made his decision. Continuing with the missing information that fills in the blanks, the reason for making this statement two separate sentences is to make the statement clear that he has decided that he will not be like his father. Ending the passage with the simple sentence that he would have his own life.
This passage focuses on the character john as he goes through the process of trying to deal with the fact that he had sinned, and how that makes him feel and more over how it will come to impact his life.
James baldwin uses a descriptive writing style to keep us intrigued and able to relate to what john is going through as he is laying in bed thing about how this makes him feel. The beginning of the passage makes it feel as if he is in such regret for doing something that makes him feel cursed, as it continues we see the process he goes through to come to the realization that he feels as his brother felt and the reason for feeling this way is not because of the power of god but because of his father. We see the description of the church and how it has been such a big presents in his life that he feels the judgment of the placards of the religious figures around him, knowing that what he had done was waged against death. Inside of john's head we see him freaking out and yet is able to find clarity in his sin. We learn that John feels that he has sinned and that act of masturbating that thinking of older boys is unspeakable. He seems to believe that the sin he had committed was unforgivable, by himself or by god. This is the part of the book that we see the struggles that john is go through in his own mind and that clarity in the decision of not being like his father is the only thing that comes out of
it.
The overview from this passage allows us to see what is going through john's mind very clearly. It makes it simple to understand and relate to the problems that he is facing. It becomes one of the most important parts of the book because it allows us to see the struggle that he is go through, knowing that he has sinned and not knowing how to deal with the guilt of it. This is the part of the book in which we see the first real sign of hope in john for a future that is different than his father.