Growing up as a poor African American in New York City, James Baldwin finds himself isolated from Whites and blacks with questions about self identity. In 1948, disgusted with race relations in the United States, he moved to Paris where he lived, on and off, for the rest of his life. During his travels in Europe he discovers that the limitations that he was bounded by in America were no longer prevalent in European society.

Baldwin went to Europe to find out how his experience as a black American "could be made to connect [him] with other people instead of dividing [him] from them." (Baldwin 40). Baldwin saw a way of life that was very different from the way he lived in America. He didn’t want to been seen as a “negro writer,” but as a true writer representing every American. “I wanted to prevent myself from becoming merely a Negro; or, even merely a Negro writer.” (Baldwin 40) He was now in a society that valued his talent and allowed it to grow, by not judging him by his skin color but more on the content of his work. Comparing himself to other American writers in Europe, race no longer stood as a factor as the playing field was leveled.

In Europe (The old world), Artists are looked upon more favorable than in America. “The American writer, in Europe, is released, first of all, from the necessity of apologizing for himself. It is not until he is released from the habit of flexing his muscles and proving that he is just a “regular guy” that he realizes how crippling this habit has been. It is not necessary for him, there, to pretend to be something he is not, for the artist does not encounter in Europe the same suspicion he encounters here.” (Baldwin 42)

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