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In his novel «Stranger in the village» in 1953, James Baldwin aims to highligth the difficulties African Americans face living in the United States. Being, himself, a visitor in a all-white small Swiss village while writting this novel, he compares his experience to African Americans whose past is dependent on white european history, but the contrary is not true. He uses his story in order to raise awarness about racism and the way African Americans are treated in the USA. His work is directed to educated and open minded Americans like artists or politicians. 

James Arthur Baldwin is the author of the essay Stranger in the village, an extract from Notes of a native son (1955). In his essay, he counts the experience of being black in a all-white village and asserts that because of racism, people treat him like a stranger whereas 

he is in United States or in Switzerland. The author develops his claim by using long and descriptive sentences to set the environment. Moreover he uses a lot of repetitions in order to emphasize his ideas, for example the fact he is excluded. 

Besides, J. Baldwin has a relationship with the audience based on the principle of convincing people and especially American population. Indeed he uses an appeal to emotions and also the Pathos, Ethos and Logos which are modes of persuasion  used to convince the audience.

 

 

Stranger in the village was written by James Baldwin, and published in November 21th, 1955 in the compilation of essays named “Notes of a Native Son”. This essay explains that there is a fundamental difference between Europeans and Americans white-black relationships. The author uses his experience as an American black man in a Swiss village to support the idea that the difference is the fact that the European black man does not exist in European white eyes, as they are not directly on the continent and it created an ignorance about the black man with underlying hypocrisy. However, African-Americans can’t be ignored by white American because a new black man that was created by those same white men due to slavery is living on the same land; white Americans wants to be as ignorant as the Europeans, but they cannot since they are confronted to black mans every day. James Baldwin explains this in order to show that the black American man is no longer the same as an African man and the white American man is no longer the same as a European man. His target audience are white people, especially American one to make them stop ignoring the question of black men’s rights in America. 

 

In his essay «Stranger in the Village» (1953), James Baldwin discusses how black people are treated differently in Switzerland in comparaison to the United States, that the europeans are being ignorant. Baldwin backs this claim up by starting to talk about how people makes him feel like stranger in the small Swiss village and after talk about how black people are treated in general and compared the different attitudes that exist toward them. The author decided to write this work in order to educate people about racism, to show americans that they could have reacted differently. 

James Baldwin’s essay, Stranger in the village (1953) argues that black people are struggling to find their place in a white society. Baldwin uses different rhetorical appeal to support his popint, logos , ethos, pathos. The author’s purpose is to point out the racism deeply rooted in white people consciousness in order to denunce that white people don’t want to admit the existence of black people because they see them as a liability. Given the difficult construction of the sentences, the essay was written for a well-educated audience but it's especially directed toward white people to make them realize the situation.

 

James Baldwin’s essay, "Stranger in the village"  from Notes of a Native son (1955), argues about the position of African-American people ,through the time in the United States and in the world and also about the relationship between white and black people. The author explicitely denounce the ubiquitous racism faced by his community in America, that exists because of the supposed and imposed superiority of white people. Throughout his thesis statement, Baldwin makes a huge parallel between how he is seen in the tiny Swiss village and how he is treated in America as a black man. His purpose is to use his personal experience in order to point the tense racial issues in America. Baldwin's essay is especially addressed to the American audience as he writes in the optic of accusing the racial policies and the treatment of colored people in the United States.

James Baldwin’s essay, Stranger in the village (1953) proves that the effect of being a stranger is different depending on the country a black man lives in.

Using ethos (giving the reader credibility and trust), logos (reality logics and proofs of his statement) and pathos (stimulating the reader’s emotions), Baldwin develops and supports his claim. The writer’s purpose is to highlight the fact that being a black man in America is the same than being a black man in a little village, of a white people majority, in Europe in order to denounce the fact that white people are treating him the same way in his own country and in a lost village of Switzerland, and to trigger a reaction from the reader. By adding references, Baldwin addresses his essay to anyone who has some knowledge about European culture and history to make the reader think about his power of convincing.