![]() ![]() ![]() (There’s a reason, after all, that “Grimes” is the protagonist’s last name.) Lying there on the floor, John struggles through a descent into darkness, seeing in his trance-like state the loneliness and wretchedness of hell he yearns to “flee - out of this darkness, out of this company - into the land of the living, so high, so far away. The scene is at once violent and soul-rending, for John’s father, the preacher of the church, towers over his son in anger over the young boy’s dirty and unwashed soul, for his son’s sinfulness. The young protagonist, John Grimes, writhes on the floor of his father’s church, surrounded by the congregation who are praying for his salvation. One of the most riveting scenes in American literature is the threshing floor episode in James Baldwin’s novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. ![]()
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