A FLY IN BUTTERMILK BY-JAMES BALDWIN ABOUT THE AUTHOR PURPOSE The story emphasizes the problem that hinders integration in the school system as a microcosm for American society. Baldwin identifies that people in the south, both black and white are unwilling to initiate change.

1. A FLY IN
BUTTERMILK
BY-JAMES BALDWIN

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BORN James Arthur Baldwin
August 2, 1924
DIED December 1,
1987 (aged 63),France
NATIONALITY American
OCCUPATION Writer
YEARS ACTIVE 1947–85

3. PURPOSE
The story emphasizes the problem that hinders
integration in the school system as a
microcosm for American society. Baldwin
identifies that people in the south, both black
and white are unwilling to initiate change.

4. THEME
James Baldwin’s “A FLY IN BUTTERMILK” poignantly
reflect the essence of the experience of being minority
student on a predominantly white school campus.
In his excerpt “A FLY IN BUTTERMILK”, Baldwin
discusses his encounter with a southern family. This
family includes a young black male who is enrolled in
an all white high school. He asks of the boy’s trouble
and discusses his responses.

5. “YOU CAN TAKE THE CHILD
OUT OF THE COUNTRY, BUT
YOU CAN’T TAKE THE
COUNTRY OUT OF THE
CHILD”

6. BOOKER’S
PHILOSOPHY The boy is impassive. He never speaks unless spoken to, he
keeps his head down at home and during school . He immerses
himself in schoolwork as a way to escape. This is a lot like
Booker philosophy, of how blacks can only be successful by
keeping their heads down doing as they are told and not
fighting back. He lets the school children walk all over him.
Baldwin asks him if the other kids at school bother him, and he
evades the question by answering, "I don't let them bother me".
This implies that he is being viciously treated, but is choosing
not to let anyone know how it is affecting him.

7. “SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
IS FUELED BY SEGREGATED
SCHOOL SYSTEM”

8. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
When boy described his former school, he said that he
learned nothing and the teacher didn't cared.
His mother explains : "He wasn't learning anything and
nobody cared if he ever learned anything, and I could
just see what was going to happen if he kept on like
that".
Nothing is expected from them, so no effort is done
for their education.

9. THE WHITE CHOSES TO IGNORE
THIS…
When Baldwin asks if the principal thinks that black
children come to integrated schools due to lack of
decent education in segregated schools, he replies, "It
seems to me that colored schools are as good as
white schools". And when asked about the race
relations, he said that race relations in the city have
been 'excellent' and has not been affected by recent
developments.

10. SYMBOLIC MEANING
The title “ A FLYIN BUTTERMILK " is a comparison where the
buttermilk has been compared with the white majority group and the
fly has been compared with the black African-American. It can also
be derived as black among whites just as the story describes the child
as being one among many.

11. The story describes the child's
determination and hard work, with which
he keeps himself busy enough to not let
the memories of the day's incidents to fill
his mind. The child is not at all bothered
by the name calling that he is subjected
to. The child G refuses to go back to his
former school that was specially meant
for the minority and coloreds.

12. LEARNINGS
The situation is a microcosm for a black man
in white America. "Segregation have worked
brilliantly in the south, and in fact, the nation
to this extent: It has allowed white people,
with scarcely any pangs of conscience,
whatever to create, in every generation, only
the Negros they wished to see".

13. THANK YOU
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