Between The World And Me

In Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author uses a myriad of memories to paint the story of his life in a letter to his son. He brings memories from all periods from his life, and meshes them together into an interlocking web of situations and circumstances that define who he is as an African-American male in the United States of America. He is writing this memoir in the form of a letter to his son, the message he is trying to communicate is for an African-American, you must be aware of how easily someone else can take your body. In the text he describes his childhood in West Baltimore, through his young adult hood, and into his current adult life using the element of memory to mesh the story into a flowing saga of his life. …show more content…
Coates’s Mecca is Howard University, it is his safe haven from the world. The people that populated Howard were a majority of African-Americans, but they were all different. Each person defined themselves while at Howard, they all changed to fit their new desires and life-interests. He recalls his attitude of thinking, “Everyone of serious import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white.” He noted that African-Americans were only represented in a trivial fashion, ‘the firsts,’ whether they were the first black mayor or first black president. The history books included noting that they were the firsts of their elected or given post, the serious history was the Western World, and that world was white. (Coates, 43). During his time spent at Howard he began reading books by authors that were barely older than he was, their voice was one he identified with, and he could share his views with these texts. His proclaimed bible was Chancellor Williams’s, Destruction of Black Society. With this text he read about an Ancient Queen in Central Africa, who stood up against the Dutch who came into her homelands. She had commanded a servant to get onto all fours so she could have a seat when in counsel with the Dutch. Coates desired this power, he wanted to be able to flaunt his authority against the oppressing force (Coates, 45). Coates would walk into the library and select three different texts by separate …show more content…
Coates incorporates memory throughout the narrative, after he weaves his memories into the story, he writes about what he learned from the situations he has gone through, and how he 's been strengthened. His narrative shows you how he has developed his life ideology; how every significant event of his life etches a new central idea. Coates describes his life saga through his memories: he recounts every meaningful moment, ties himself to that moment, explains how he felt, and how these moments have sculpted him into the person he is