In Baldwin’s
“This Morning, This Evening, So Soon” there is a lot that happens, something
that is not surprising in a very long short story. Although there are a number
of characters that are key to the story as a whole, I found that one of the most
interesting characters was Boona, and despite his appearance in only the last scene, we are told a lot about his story. All of the information we get is in a short span of writing, but the way that it is organized gives us a lot more information than you would expect.
For context, while the narrator and his friends are at a
nightclub, they meet Boona, who has been friends with the narrator for many
years, despite them having lost touch for a while. The conflict arrises when Boona is accused of stealing money from Ada. This conflict is
what tells us the most about Boona, and Baldwin gives us information
through the thoughts of the narrator, rather than through dialogue. I found
this section very interesting to read especially since we know what the
narrator wanted to say to Boona, and what he really said. This is seen on page
189 which is when the narrator is at first talking to Boona about stealing the
money.
“She say I take her money,” he
says. He, too looks as though he is about to weep—but I do not know for which
reason. “You know me, you know me almost twelve years, you think I do such a
thing?”
Talley saw you, I want to say, but
I cannot say it. Perhaps Talley only thought he saw him. Perhaps it is easy to
see a boy who looks like Boona with his hand in an American girl’s purse.
I believe that this is a very important passage, as we see how
the narrator is having an internal struggle trying not to get his friend in trouble.
I believe that this way of giving the reader information, with a mix of thought
and dialogue, ends up supplying us with much more. From the passage with Boona
as a whole we learn about why he steals through the narrator’s thoughts, but also about
the prejudice of the surrounding community from the conversation. All in all
the dynamic of the dynamics of the writing in this last passage is quite
complicated, but I believe that in the end we are supplied with better information about Boona and his
situation.
