Please write one post, about a page (~250 words), in response to the following.
One of the oft-quoted lines from James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village” reads:
“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.” (p 129)
While it is far from encapsulating the essay as a whole, a number of concepts or themes mentioned here can be found throughout. Find another place where you find one of these ideas – innocence, reality, vision, monstrosity – being expressed, in a line or brief passage, and write about it. How is it used in the particular place you are citing? Do you consider this to be a major theme (ideas expressed repeatedly, often in different forms) or a minor theme (ideas or thoughts expressed as accompaniment or counter) or something that works between, as a partner or equal expression to Baldwin’s main focus? How so?