Fathers, sons, and paternity issues

Go Tell it on the Mountain (James Baldwin) and Call it Sleep (Henry Roth) are thematically very similar novels. Both are centered on young boys who must cope with difficult, abusive fathers and poverty.

Call It Sleep (CIS) was published in 1934, but begins in 1907, ending around 1917. The father of the family had immigrated from Germany and the novel opens with the arrival of his wife and son. The story is recounted through the boy, David's eyes. He is very impressionable and sensitive, and his father's animosity aggravates his sensitive nature. Adjusting to life in New York's slums is a challenge. Roth's writing was unique in its use of Yiddish and vernacular speech for dialogue and the scenes that are described are evocative.

David's father has a very belligerent character and doubts that David is actually his own son. Because of this doubt he treats his wife and son cruelly. His cruelty, Roth implies, pushes the mother and son to be unnaturally loving and close. Frequently David's love for his mother seems to cross over into a sexualized feeling. There are frequent references to his mother's bosom, jealousy of a family friend who attempts to seduce her, etc. For example, after an upsetting incident David says: "'Mama! Mama! Mama!' Only the sheltering valley between her breasts muffled his scream of fear to her heart."

Or earlier,
"With knees drawn up, David watched her wipe the linoleum beneath his chair. The shadow between her breasts, how deep! How far it - No! No! Luter! When he looked! That night! Mustn't! Mustn't! Look away! Quick!"

The relationship between David and his mother (who's name, Genya, is used rarely) appears to not be healthy, and until the end of the novel the reader wonders if David will end up having a mental breakdown as he does not seem functional. He also does not seem like a realistic 4-12 year old boy. However, not having been a boy perhaps I am not an authority on the subject.

Go Tell It On The Mountain starts with John, a 14 year old narrating his family story, living in Harlem. His parents had migrated North to New York as young adults and he is the first generation to grow up in the "liberal" North rather than in the "segregated" South.

In contrast to CIS, the narration switches between John, his aunt, his father, and finally his mother. Due to this multiplicity of perspectives the story is recounted in a more realistic way. John's father dislikes him, but the secret to his dislike is hidden from John. Just as David's father doubts his paternity, John's father also has paternity issues. With the four narrative voices of the story the reader understands better what has shaped the characters and life histories of the narrators. John has deep scars from his father's dislike though which emerge when he enters a trance-like religious state in church:

"Then his father was upon him; at his touch there was singing, and fire. John lay on his back in the narrow street, looking up at his father, that burning face beneath the burning towers.

'I'm going to beat it out of you. I'm going to beat it out.' His father raised his hand. The knife came down. John rolled away, down the white, descending street, screaming: 'Father! Father!'"

The father seems to symbolize both John's father and God who is invoked by each character as an overpowering presence who must by appeased, despite uncertainty as to what his wishes are. John's vision seems to be a way of reaching an understanding of his father and his relationship with him.

Both of these novels deal with similar issues of immigration, cultural assimilation, ethnicity, and father-son relationships. Both fathers are violent, rather hateful people, both mothers loving and virtuous. And both fathers hate their sons because they suspect or know that they are not genetically their own. Both sons grow up with a hatred of their "fathers" that is violent.