Elisha plays an important role in this part of the book. John has resisted religion for so long because he believes that it would be Gabriel who would act as his intermediary to God. Instead, it is Elisha who stands in Gabriel’s place beside John, helping him through his ordeal. It is Elisha whom John first sees upon opening his eyes after his visions. It is Elisha who helps John up from the threshing floor while Gabriel refuses to acknowledge that his stepson is saved. It is Elisha who rejoices that John has been reborn while Gabriel resents the fact that it is his stepson and not his son who has been redeemed.
Gabriel parents through power, not through love or example. When Florence asks Gabriel if he will help John live a holy life, Gabriel does not respond as one might expect a loving father to. Gabriel can only react to situations as they pertain to him: “The Lord done put his soul in my charge—and I ain’t going to have that boy’s blood on my hands.” His sullen, authoritarian answer is “I am going to see to it. … ” Gabriel is loath to help John on his journey of righteousness.
Elisha, on the other hand, rejoices for John and the opportunity to help him. He reassures John that, “I ain’t going to stop praying for the brother what the Lord done give me.” He cements their brotherhood with a “holy kiss” to John’s forehead. Elisha promises to be something that Gabriel never has been and never will be: a positive role model who leads through example.
John’s recollection of the story of Ham reflects his concern that he is cursed for having seen Gabriel naked and alludes to the often-cited biblical justification for slavery. The biblical Ham was the youngest son of Noah. After the great flood, Noah planted a vineyard, made wine, and became drunk. He fell asleep naked in his tent. Ham saw his father and mockingly told his brothers. Unlike Ham, his brothers—good sons—walked backwards into the tent which housed their father. Not looking at his nudity, the two brothers covered their father and departed. When Noah awoke and learned what had happened, he cursed Ham and Ham’s descendants to be the slaves of his filial brothers (“servants of servants”). In a meager attempt to justify slavery biblically and morally, some contended that the Africans used as American slaves were descendants of Ham. No doubt Baldwin intends both of these references.
John realizes that time doesn’t worry itself with curses. A curse is reborn every moment and given from a father to his son. It does seem, however, as though John has been cursed with at least part of Gabriel’s attitude. When John stands at the top of a hill in Central Park, “he felt like a tyrant” and a “conqueror” that he would be “the most beloved, the Lord’s anointed.” Gabriel felt the same way on the morning of his own conversion. “He wanted power—he wanted to know himself to be the Lord’s anointed … He wanted to be master. … ”
The order is changed but the sentiment is the same. Both young men had a desire for power and a Holy position. Gabriel has been consumed by his distorted view of religion and has hurt those closest to him through his insistence on his absolute supremacy. It is certain that John does not want to inherit his father’s ways. Perhaps Florence said it best when she tells Gabriel that his children are “going to do their best to keep it (his life) from becoming their lives.”
In the church, just as in his home, John is surrounded by dirt. Though he and Elisha just finished sweeping and mopping the floor, it is still dirty. Here the dirt represents sin and corruption, and no amount of soap and water can wash those away. John finds himself lying on the “filthy” floor and “going farther and farther from the joy, the singing and the light above him.” Above him is the church and beyond that heaven, below him the dirty floor and past that hell. John finds that the dust which is “sharp as the fumes of Hell” causes him “to cough and wretch,” and he struggles to rise only to find that his body will not obey him. It is not his body that John must have charge of, it is his soul. His body obeys him only after his terrible visions and his glimpse of the Lord. It is then that John cries out to be saved and his new life begins.
John must struggle on the threshing floor to be saved from hell. He must ask God to raise him out of the dirt and into the holy light. Just as a baptism washes away sin, John is only able to come through his ordeal after his tears “sprang as from a mountain.” His tears wash away his sin so that he is able to rise up from the dirty floor, purified and renewed for the kingdom of Heaven.
