The title of this section has certain thematic significance: “The Seventh Day” is a biblical allusion referring to Genesis 2, verses 1–3: “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. … ” The biblical seventh day is a respite and a day of reward, a holy day of celebration and rest from the previous days’ work in which God had completed his creation, and “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
Baldwin uses this creation-birth-rebirth image throughout the novel: The novel opens in March, the beginning of spring, associated with new life and birth. It is John’s 14th birthday, “birthday” itself suggesting some significance in this regard and the special significance of the 14th birthday connoting puberty, that is, the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. Elizabeth, John’s mother, is pregnant. The home and church pressure “unit[e] to drive [John] to the alter,” that is, drive him to “being saved” or “born again.” Perhaps most significantly, the image can be seen in the symbolic new beginning that virtually every adult character in the novel seeks in moving from the oppression of the South in search of something better in the North. The image appears even in the title of the novel; the “It” in Go Tell It on the Mountain is “Jesus Christ is born.”
In the Christian world, Sunday has been designated as the symbolic representation of the seventh day, the Sabbath, the day that Christians have set aside as a day of rest to worship and to celebrate their religion. The allusion is certainly significant here in at least two ways. First, according to the Bible, God rested on the seventh day after his crowning creation—that of man—on the sixth day. Poignantly, it is on the sixth day, a Saturday, that John, one of the major characters, is fated to end his own childhood (innocence) and initiate the biological process of becoming a male adult—symbolically the physical creation of a man. As we will learn in the climax of the novel (Part Three, “The Threshing Floor”), John will also end his religious dilemma and questioning and initiate the religious process of rebirth, symbolically creating a new Christian soul. The process of creation at least for that part of his life ends, and, when his life is taken up again the next day, John is changed and redefined.
Second, the mood, tone, and atmosphere of the Genesis creation serve as direct contrasts to the world that Baldwin describes in this section. When God created man on the sixth day, he gave him “dominion … over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” and when he surveyed his creation, God concluded “it was very good.” The mood and tone are triumphant, hopeful, proud, and glorious. There is anticipation of great accomplishments and power for God’s favorite and most significant creation in a bright, new, and clean world. This, however, is hardly the world or fortune of the Baldwin characters and, especially, of Baldwin’s new man, John, who essentially has dominion over nothing and survives in a world that he views as filthy and sinful.
The opening vignettes represent the various settings—home, church, neighborhood—as dingy, drab, depressing, nearly worn out, and poverty laden. It presents the various characters—family, passersby, congregation, ministers, and authority figures—as oppressed and manipulated, highly sexual and emotional, and driven by reacting to circumstances rather than controlling (having dominion over) them. These descriptions conform to and exemplify the dirt imagery that Baldwin links to the story’s general environment. These images communicate, at different times, various meanings from filthy or squalid conditions to contemptible or vile acts to personal corruption and sin. For example, consider the scene in which John surveys the family kitchen. Dirt doesn’t just exist passively in the kitchen; it is personified: It “triumphs,” “crawls,” and lives “in delirious communion with the corrupted walls.” The rug in the parlor, once beautiful, is now frayed from use and impossibly dirty, demons adding dirt while John tries to remove it. Even the family and neighborhood church is a storefront—a used, converted (from its original intended purpose), and dust laden environment.
Religion for this community is not merely a Sunday, once-a-week happening; it is a part of everyday life. Because there appears to be no avenue of escape from one’s oppression in this world, one holds out hope it will happen in the next. Consequently, religion and religious activities are of primary importance. Because of this, Baldwin uses numerous religious and biblical references, allusions, and parallels to communicate and emphasize his themes. (The reader will do well to keep a copy of the Bible with a decent concordance close at hand.) Following are some of the more important allusions.
The phrase “Go tell it on the Mountain” is, itself, a verse from an African-American spiritual: “Go, tell it on the Mountain, over the hills and everywhere, that Jesus Christ is born!”
Many of the characters have biblical names that reflect their personalities, mirror their biblical counterparts, or add depth or subtle meaning to their character. Gabriel, for example (see the Character Analyses for further identification), is an angel in the Bible who acts as God’s messenger. The name itself means “mighty man of God.” As a minister, the character Gabriel in the novel does indeed bring the word of God to his neighbors, and he is mighty in the lives of his family members. Also, the biblical Elizabeth is a very devout woman who was a cousin to the Virgin Mary. God promised and gave the barren Elizabeth a son in her old age. Her son was John the Baptist. Baldwin’s Elizabeth is the mother of John, the central character. (There is some scholarly debate over which John in the Bible John Grimes is intended to mirror. Some argue that he is intended to be John the Baptist whose mother was Elizabeth. John baptized the holy, including his cousin, Jesus, while prophesizing that God himself would later baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Other scholars insist that it is John of Patmos whom John Grimes is intended to resemble. They argue that there are many correlations between this biblical John and the novel’s John, including several passages that are closely paralleled. Also, Baldwin’s John is helped through his struggle on the threshing floor by recalling a religious song about John of Patmos.)
