Part One of Go Tell It on the Mountain is titled “The Seventh Day.” As we discussed in class, there is a lot of imagery of renewal and rebirth–Pentecost, spring, John’s 14th birthday. In Genesis, God rested on the seventh day. He had just finished his creation, making humankind in his image and likeness and granting them “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth” (Genesis 1:26), and he saw that his creation was good. The novel, however, does not give us the same imagery. Instead, the imagery of dust, dirt, and filth recur throughout the novel. During John’s Saturday morning chores he would become overwhelmed by dust–”each dustpan he so laboriously filled at the doorsill demons added to the rug twenty more” (24). John and his family’s world does not feel as the same beautiful and good one God created and granted humankind. Additionally, the characters in the novel seem to have little to no control, or dominion, over their own lives and choices. Gabriel, John, Elizabeth, and Florence are unable to see that something better may lie ahead of them–unable to ‘see a way out of the desert.’
At the end of the novel, John is saved. As we discussed in class, he has become a prophet of sorts, just as Baldwin felt that he was for Black America. When they leave the temple, they emerge onto the “filthy streets [ringing] with the early-morning light” (202). The streets are still filthy, but they are ringing in the light. Light is an image of hope and goodness–a goodness that we see in the creation account but that John’s world has been lacking. John is becoming prepared to deliver his people from this filth. In a way, John feels like the light–there to give his people the dominion they never received. Perhaps this is like a sort of exposé on those that the creation account neglected. Perhaps the seventh day here is of a new creation story for Black America–one where they will receive their dominion, volition, and goodness so that they too can rest (Genesis 2).