The motif of the native son lends the symbolic universe within which Baldwin writes. The native son is many things. Most immediately, there is the enormous impact of Richard Wright and his novel Native Son. Baldwin’s earliest writing inevitably emerges within the shadow cast by Wright’s work. Baldwin establishes himself as a new voice on the literary scene, in part, by staking a critical position on Native Son. There are obvious familial and religious overtones here. Baldwin’s writing career was fueled early on by his need to break free from his father’s house. His first novel was largely autobiographical in its depiction of a young man’s difficult relationship with his preacher father. Baldwin not only wrote Go Tell It On The Mountain, but also his first couple essays on Richard Wright, out of a need to assuage his own tensions between his stepfather and himself.

The religious overtones of the prodigal son, the chosen one, and the fallen one are also evident here. The prodigal son must risk disappointing the father to follow his own path; he must risk not being able to come home again. Baldwin had to flee the US to return home again several years later.