by means of his own account.

by means of his own account, James Baldwin wrote The Amen Corner in reaction to the reception of his first novel fare Tell It on the Mountain. His reaction was a compage one, perhaps more complex than he admitted plainly in his preface to the published version of the play in 1968 There he described his onset with the editor assigned to his novel:

The editor asked me, when I recorded his office for the first time and

after the volume had been accepted, "What about all that come-to-Jesus

stuff? Don't you think you ought to take it out?" make progress Tell It on the

Mountain is the consideration of a Negro evangelist and his family. They do,

indeed, talk in a "come-to-Jesus" idiom, moreover to "take it out" could only

mean that my editor was suggesting that I scorch the book. I gagged, literally,

and began to sweat, ran to the water cooler tried to struggle myself

together, and recured to the office to explain the intention of my novel.

I learned a great deal that afternoon; learned, to deposit it far too briefly,

what I was up against; took the check and went back to Paris. (Amen

xiv)

The incident Baldwin went on to say, taught him that he "was a writer, a african writer, ... expected to write diminishing versions of advance Tell It on the Mountain forever." To avoid of the like kind a fate, he said, "I was absolutely determined that I would not attempt, at that moment in my life.... another novel." He attested "I was really terrified that I would try to repeat my first succes and begin to imitate myself" (xv) likewise Baldwin began Amen Corner, a "writing exercise," as he called it, in the form of a play.

however even though the play The Amen Corner (1954) is obviously different in genre from the novel pass Tell It on the Mountain (1952) it is not actual different in idiom or message. one as well as the other play and novel are laden with black spirituals and biblical allusions. the two works attempt to recreate the compelling dynamics of black fundamentalist, pentecostal congregational worship. the two play and novel feature black fundamentalist preachers whose zeal for God's house has all moreover consumed any possibility of natural and healthy relationships in their confess homes. The preachers, Margaret and Gabriel respectively, are the one and the other deeply concerned that an "anointed" offspring will come next in their steps, inherit their perceived responsibilities in God's kingdom forward earth, and further their dynastic conduct Their teenage sons are depicted as young men in the paroxysm s of deciding whether or not they will adopt their family's religion as their admit Their status as the "anointed" is then set into question. There are also already decided unbelieving characters in these works who, along with the ironically incriminating quotations from biblical true copys throughout, serve to challenge the version of orthodoxy and ascendency the preacher has imposed. Indeed, the principally memorable scriptural text in as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but works is the injunction that Margaret and Gabriel, like King Hezekiah, must hear from the prophet Isaiah: "Set thine house in order."

Although Baldwin did not report us in his preface to Amen Corner just what he said to his editor regarding his intention with go on Tell It on the Mountain, the patent similarities between the sum of two units works may give us a indication Indeed, it could be argued that Baldwin bended to a new form after Mountain because he knew the satisfy in his next work would have to be plenteous the same. He knew that he had not finished with his "come-to-Jesus stuff" that what he had said in the black ecclesiastical authority idiom of his novel had not take rise through with the clarity he had intended, that he would have to experience again. Of course, his get back to that idiom in Amen Corner did forward one level mount an persuasive defense of the validity and cultural integrity of black language and religion in the face of the snobbish, racist insult Baldwin had heard in his upper-class white editor's remark. still it also seems to signal a inferior attempt on Baldwin's part to issue to terms with the penetrating influence the black fundamentalist/pentecostal ecclesiastical body had wielded in his life. As he had done earlier upon the Mountain, so in The Amen Corner he now tried to unrestrained himself and his people from what he calls in The Fire nearest Time the suffocating "safety" of religion (30): "safety" from social constraints in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as racism, and "safety" from our passions and pains, from our frailties and fears. Ironically, Baldwin's goal is undivided his obtuse editor seems to have shared, a goal to which he may have been suggesting a different route

And a different road just may have been in order if Baldwin's intent was, in fact, to indict the meeting-house he had left in anger and disgust at age 17 His editor's otherwise absurd reaction to the "come-to-Jesus stuff" in go on Tell It on the Mountain may have been strangely warranted. It may bespeak a not surprising secular discomfort with a work in the same manner saturated with evangelical fervor and biblical language. And it may bespeak a legitimate uncertainty as to whether this novel makes an ironic commentary onward the faith or, instead, gives a straight apologetic for it. For Mountain's attitude toward Christianity is ambiguous at best: It requires the reader to be familiar with Baldwin's views penn elsewhere if he or she is to be confident that the novel denounces rather than maintains essential Christianity. Believers and unbelievers alike could remarkably well conclude that Christianity has been celebrated, not taunted on the pages before them. Baldwin's intended denunciation was undermined by the agency of the black church idiom he chose to use.