Geovanna Septimio Landivar

09 October 2022

"Stranger in the Village" is an essay written by James Baldwin, an African American

author that wrote about his personal experience visiting a small Swiss village and being probably

the first dark-skinned man ever to set foot there. The main discussion is based on his impressions

and experiences of racial discrimination towards him while he stayed in the village.

During my analysis of the concept and phenomenon words used by Baldwin throughout

the essay, I’ve defined the idea of racial superiority and the consequences it has left on our

society as the most complex idea developed by the author. As a means to evolve and

contextualize this idea, Baldwin articulated concepts that helped him in his argumentation; for

instance: the word “salvation” is used as a concept, and its phenomenon is related to alienation

and exploitation.

I without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me,

has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than

they will ever know, who yet do not even know of my existence. (Baldwin 44)

… black men remain, in the imagination, and in overwhelming numbers in fact,

beyond the disciplines of salvation: and this despite the fact that the West has been

“buying” African natives for centuries. (Baldwin 45)

The shock this spectacle afforded is suggested, surely, by the promptness with

which they decided that these black men were not really men but cattle. (Baldwin 46)
 Baldwin has been articulating how white men mostly molded the word. The sense of

dominance and power they embrace for themselves is reflected in the objectification of an entire

race. This is another side of racial discrimination that back men need to face, the fact that they

were considered a “simply living wonder” imposed to accept the white “salvation.”

These propositions are complemented by the concept “stranger” – which changes

meaning throughout the essay, articulating a broad phenomenon with several implications.

These people cannot be, from the point of view of power, strangers

anywhere in the world; they have made the modern world, even if they do not

know it. (Baldwin 44)

There is a significant difference between being the first white man to be

seen by Africans and being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white

man takes the astonishment as tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the

natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned;

whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose

culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me

more in anguish and rage than they will ever know, who yet do not even know of

my existence. The astonishment with which I might have greeted them, should

they have stumbled into my African village a few hundred years ago, might have

rejoiced their hearts. But the astonishment with which they greet me today can

only poison mine. (Baldwin 44)

The word stranger in this concept is not used in the traditional sense – it is related to

history and power. The idea refers that the villagers cannot be considered strangers to him as he
were to them, because even though these people are not known on a personal level, their history

precedes them, different from Baldwins – that remains a stranger like he was on the first day he

arrived in the village because people don’t know about his ancestor’s history; therefore, they

cannot understand him. For Baldwin, the astonishment taken as a means of power and superiority

“bought” and “converted” the past of an entire race, creating roots in history, and no matter

whether justice or injustice, it still silently poisoning our society.