Gabriel is an extremely important character in the novel, albeit not a complex one; he is more symbolic than realistic, and as such his character may appear to be flat and somewhat static because the reader does not see many sides to him, and he does not seem to change much throughout the novel. In terms of plot, Gabriel affects every character in the book. He is the unifying element that they all have in common. Thematically, Gabriel symbolizes first generation African Americans of former-slave parents, born free; therefore, he exhibits the heinous effects that the American slavery experience had on the generations of victims that followed the emancipation, the war, and the reconstruction periods.
Baldwin informs us of the biographical specifics that fashion Gabriel's character through descriptions of his impact on and relationships with the other characters — both past and present — throughout the novel. The reader is encouraged to pay particular attention to "Part II: The Prayers of the Saints" in which Baldwin uses the flashback technique to fill in needed biological and historic data generally and to give the reader insights into Gabriel's psyche and motives through Florence, his sister; Elizabeth, his present wife; and Gabriel himself.
We learn that most importantly Gabriel is, as we all are, the product of his environment(s) and his experiences: He is all of the potential he possessed in youth percolated through a lifetime of hate and hostility, of unfulfilled ambitions and dreams, of unrealized hopes and expectations, of heartbreak and humiliation, of being demeaned and devalued. In short, he is a product of a lifetime of being a black man in a racist America. The reality of Gabriel's situation was that no matter how his mother may have endowed him, no matter what great qualities he may or may not have acquired or had bestowed upon him, his life options, his opportunities for the future, his very existence — whether he lived or died and how and when — were dictated, not by ambition or by intellect or by sacrifice or by hard work or by good deeds or by perseverance or even, at last, by prayer; instead they were dictated by the color and hue of his skin. He could have success and a successful life, but only with the permission of and within the parameters set by the white establishment and systems.
