Read about "Stranger in the Village"
Class Discussion Questions:
- As an essay, this piece has a rhetorical purpose. Can you identify what it is (or several)? Who do you think the audience is for this argument?
- What does Baldwin mean when he says, "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them"?
- What are the implications of the idea that rage is not susceptible to argument?
- Baldwin speaks to an idea we have discussed over and over this semester: "People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." Are we guilty of this mistake if we try to resolve our race problems by being blind to race, by trying to define "human" regardless of race?
