He wants to be his own person, to be accepted for he is unconditionally. He is always friendly with the villagers and smiles at them, even despite the villagers’ curiosity, amusement, prejudice, and even that weird thing of “buying” Africans to convert them to Christianity. Baldwin struggles with this though, for he feels as if he is trapped. On page forty-four Baldwin says, “...I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people’s whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish in rage more than they will ever know.” Baldwin wishes that he didn’t have to be the one to represent diversity in other places. He wishes that the white men before his time (and even now) didn’t create this pain he is forced to feel now. This is especially prevalent in America, but not so much in the village. In the village, he is a complete stranger, with a chance of being accepted for who he is despite first being a sight to see. There is not a clear history of deep rooted racism and prejudice in the Swiss village like there is in the United
He wants to be his own person, to be accepted for he is unconditionally. He is always friendly with the villagers and smiles at them, even despite the villagers’ curiosity, amusement, prejudice, and even that weird thing of “buying” Africans to convert them to Christianity. Baldwin struggles with this though, for he feels as if he is trapped. On page forty-four Baldwin says, “...I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people’s whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish in rage more than they will ever know.” Baldwin wishes that he didn’t have to be the one to represent diversity in other places. He wishes that the white men before his time (and even now) didn’t create this pain he is forced to feel now. This is especially prevalent in America, but not so much in the village. In the village, he is a complete stranger, with a chance of being accepted for who he is despite first being a sight to see. There is not a clear history of deep rooted racism and prejudice in the Swiss village like there is in the United