Method of The Study
tambourine outstrectched and a couple of people dropped coins into it. Then the brother’s testimony ended and the sister who had been taking up the
collection dumped the coins into her palm and transferred them to the pocket of her long black robe. Then she raised both hands, striking the
tambourine against the air, and then against one hand, and she started to sing. And the two other sisters and the brother joined in. p.128
Although this is only a street revival meeting with few instruments, Baldwin
describes how the performance conducted as a grand ritual. The purpose of the three sisters and the brother conducting the revival is to rescue people by
proclaiming the Christian’s path of salvation. They want the people listen to them
and share the joy experiences achieved through music and singing rather than merely gaining their coins.
Baldwin makes a subjective description from the narrator’s point of view that actually this kind of performance is not a strange thing for the people. They
had watched the street revival many times before. However, the narrator notices that the people still to be ignorant or not really listening to them. Even the narrator
thinks that actually people do not really believe in the revival because they also knew that the sisters and the brother are ordinary people, they knew them and live
like them. Not a soul under the sound of their voices was hearing this song for the first
time, not one of them had been rescued. Nor had they seen much in the way of rescue work being done around them. Neither did they especially believe
in the holiness of the three sisters and the brother, they knew too much about them, knew where they lived, and how. p.129.
However, Baldwin still emphasizes the importance of the music
performance. He wants to say that the music has a special role in the revival. The text shows that the people start to be affected emotionally by the music as the
revival performance progress:
As the singing filled the air the watching, listening faces, underwent a change, the eyes focusing on something within; the music seemed to soothe
a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly to fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their first
condition, while dreaming of their last. p.129 The statement shows that the music is able to release emotions. Even to
some people, the performance has a special effect because the music evokes a remembrance of something depressing in the past. Some people just cannot stand
this so they choose to leave. The barbecue cook half shook his head and smiled, and dropped his
cigarette and disappeared into his joint. A man fumbled in his pockets for a change and stood holding it in his hand impatiently, as though he had just
remembered a pressing appointment further up the avenue. He looked furious. p.129
Just as some people leave the revival, the narrator finds his brother, Sonny,
in the crowd. He stands still, enjoying the performance. Then I saw Sonny, standing on the edge of the crowd. He was carrying a
wide, flat notebook with a green cover, and it made him look, from where I standing, almost like a schoolboy. The coppery sun brought out the copper
in his skin, he was very faintly smiling, standing very still. p.129 Afterwards, Baldwin ends his description of the revival meeting when
Sonny drops some change and walks out from the crowd. He goes into the house and meets the narrator. However, the revival meeting is not yet over, Baldwin still
makes it as the background of the next scene when the narrator has some talks with Sonny discussing the revival. Sonny notices that his brother is also fascinated
by the music so he invites the narrator to come into his performance the following night. The narrator found himself unable to refuse the invitatio
n: “I sensed, I don’t know how, that I couldn’t possibly say no.” p.130
In the description of revival meeting, Baldwin seems emphasizing the importance of the music. How the revival successfully evokes people emotions by
the singing and the music conducted by the brother and three sisters. The other important point in the verbal music of revival meeting is the event
in which the story shifts into the scene of Sonny and his brother having conversation while the music of the revival is still continuing that represent the
special characteristic of the progressive movement in the verbal music.