Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin demonstrates his complex and unique relationship with his father. Baldwin's relationship with his father is very similar to most father-son relationships, but the effect of racial discrimination on the lives of both (the father and the son) makes it distinctive. At first, Baldwin accepts that his father was just trying to take care of him, but deep down he can't help but feel that his father was imposing his thoughts and experiences on him. Baldwin's depiction of his relationship with his father while he was alive is filled with hatred and hatred for him and his ideologies, but as he matures, he discovers his father in himself. His father's hatred of white American society had filled him with hatred towards his father. He realizes that the hatred inside both of them has turned their lives upside down. Baldwin's mind seems to be saturated with anger towards his father; there is a set of dark and heartbreaking memories of his father in his mind. Baldwin confesses that "I could see him, sitting at the window, locked in his terrors; hating and fearing every living soul including his children who had betrayed him" (223). Baldwin's father felt disappointed in his children, who wanted to be part of that white world, which had once rejected him. Baldwin was hopeless in his relationship with his father. He barely remembers the pleasant time spent with his father and remarks, "I had forgotten, in the rage of my growing up, how proud my father had been of me when I was little" (234). The cloud of anger in Baldwin's mind hardly allows him to accept the fact that his father was not always the cold and distant person he perceived. It's as if Baldwin had for...half of the paper...and be prepared to bow our heads to injustice or demand "equal power" (238) and fight for our rights to the best of our abilities. Baldwin looks remorsefully at his relationship with his father and wishes his father were alive to guide him. Unlike his father, Baldwin decides to face life as it comes and not run away from the world. He chooses the hard path, that of keeping his “heart free from hatred and despair” (238) because he realizes that hatred will only isolate him from the people around him. Baldwin isn't sure how successful he will be or what the future holds for him, but he hopes he won't have a secluded future like his father. Works Cited Baldwin, James. "Notes of a Native Son". The Best American Essays of the Century.Eds. Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan. New York: Houghton-Miffin:2000. 220 – 238.