r would not like this”(Baldwin, p. 2006). “He wanted to call his mother” and becomes very frustrated and angry with his father because the father is the reason that he could not got to his mother. He knows that they are going to have intercourse and this bothers him. “He heard his mother’s moan, his father’s sigh; he gritted his teeth”(Baldwin, p. 2006). Sigmund Freud’s Edipus Complex explains Jesse’s reaction. The Edipus Complex is a son’s sexual longing for his mother. Jesse becomes jealous and “his father’s breathing seemed to fill the world”(Baldwin, p. 2006). As result of the longing for the mother, a resentment toward the father arises because the father has the mother all to himself. Jesse, in this situation, would like to replace the father so that he may experience the mother in a sexual manner. Jesse does not shake this feeling until he replaces the longing of his mother with a clossnes to the father, a common effect of the Edipus complex.Jesse’s innocence disappears completely during the flashback of the day of the lynching. The father is getting Jesse excited about the violence to come as he assures him, “We’re going on a picnic. You won’t ever forget this picnic”(Baldwin, p. 2007), Jesse replies, “Are we going to see the bad nigger?”(Baldwin, p. 2007). He uses the adjective bad, revealing the influence of the father ‘s previous comments about the black man. They arrive at the lynching and Jesse’s father shows concern toward how Jesse is feeling, “you all right?”(Baldwin, p. 2009). Then, the father “reached down suddenly and sat Jesse on his shoulders,” making Jesse feel like he was bonding with his father. He felt secure. They watched the relentless burning of the negro together and Jesse last thought of innocence arouse, “What did the man do?”(...
