Stranger in the Village

Baldwin knows he can’t convey his message through generalizations, not right from the start. He’s also aware that getting too personal would only result in a bitter rant exclusively about his feeling- one that would fail to get any message across aside from “I’m angry.”
So, instead, he opts for combining them by means of a personal anecdote that makes him reflect on the larger picture. He approaches his personal experience with a scholarly point of view, or at least frames his anxieties with it. The essay’s start is almost anthropological. It is Baldwin that studies these villagers- they are curious to him, almost primitive. One can easily picture a sophisticated urbanite amongst the rural folk. “In the village there is no movie house, no bank, no library, no theater…”
These villagers don’t know much about anything. He makes it appoint to assert this difference when mentioning his typewriter is the only one there; some villagers had never even seen one before. This removed, studious eyes he sees these people with, along with the annoyances that pepper his descriptions (“closed in the winter and used for God knows what”) is then undermined by his experience n the town. He becomes the curiosity, suddenly he is bellow them.
When this happens, Baldwin’s tone changes from observant to self-aware, and yes, bitter. His own experience, the way he became a curiosity, an inferior curiosity, serves to illustrate the point he’s making beyond his own anecdote- for some reason, he white man automatically, unquestionably superior in all scenarios. The village, then, is truly a microcosm for the way things work in the world.
“I know that no individual can be taken to task for what history is doing, or has done.”
Baldwin remains presents this story, as a tangible example of his thesis and remains true scholar despite it’s a source of anger in him.
He admits to the outrage, but is decidedly reasonable through the entirety of the essay. He is patient in his actions and patience in his words. He stops to realize he can’t outright hate these people, which gives him license to explore their, and consequently the world’s ugliness.