White missionaries (Metaphor)
Baldwin notes that when writing the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe did not intend to explain why blacks were not inferior to their white counterparts but rather tried to explain why the whites’ decisions and behaviors were understandable and how they can be explained in a rational way. Because of this, Baldwin compares Stowe to the white missionaries who, in a similar fashion, did everything they could to argue that their actions in Africa and their attitudes towards the black people were reasonable and well-motivated.
Anger spreading like illness (Metaphor and Simile)
In one of his essays, Baldwin talks about the time he lived in New Jersey. During his time there, Baldwin experienced racism, not being allowed to go into certain restaurants because of his skin color. Baldwin notes that his anger at this blatant hatred grew within him just like an illness would spread. He also compares this anger to a kind of fever that, once caught, can never fully be gotten rid of.
White centuries (Metaphor)
In discussing his relationship to the great works of Western art by Shakespeare, Bach, and others, Baldwin says that the African American is separated from them by "white centuries." This metaphor draws attention to the difference between white European/American history and the history of African and African-American peoples.
Mottoes (Simile)
When discussing protest novels, Baldwin compares extreme moralism to "those improving mottoes sometimes found hanging on the walls of furnished rooms."
Milking the cow and the goat (Metaphor)
Baldwin describes the strange combination of elements found in the film Carmen Jones with the metaphor "to milk the cow and the goat at the same time."
Congestion in Harlem (Simile)
Baldwin describes the crowdedness and congestion in Harlem as "like the insistent, maddening, claustrophobic pounding in the skull that comes from trying to breathe in a very small room with all the windows shut."
Rash of impressions (Metaphor)
While sitting at his father's funeral and remembering various things about him, Baldwin's mind "break[s] out with a rash of disconnected impressions."
Match in a tin of gasoline (Simile)
Before the Harlem riots, when people got news of the black soldier shot by a white man in a fight, "the effect of this particular legend was like the effect of a lit match in a tin of gasoline."
Amputation and gangrene (Metaphor)
In describing the difficulty of race relations in the US, Baldwin writes: "One is always in the position of having to decide between amputation and gangrene." Both separating and living together are impossible.
