The Rockpile

“The Rockpile” is primarily a story about family. John’s family is mixed, with Gabriel clearly favoring his own children and not John, the product of one of Elizabeth’s previous relationships. As such, he spoils Roy and blames John and Elizabeth for anything bad that happens. John and Elizabeth have similar features, particularly “big eyes,” that remind Gabriel of their shared past and their status as others (24). John is a physical reminder of the life of sin Elizabeth lived before marrying Gabriel, so John is treated as a “stranger” in Gabriel’s family (22). But, despite being treated as lesser, John is expected to protect Roy fully like a brother. While it is clear Gabriel runs a strict house and expects a traditional patriarchal arrangement, he does not apply force or love evenly. As a reverend, he presents himself as a good and loving man to the world, but he is neither at home. The anticipation and threat of violence is enough to terrify John, for whom the history of abuse is likely worse than the incidents depicted in the book. Clearly, the Grimes’ household is not a loving home; it is one of fear and violence.

Violence is everywhere in John and Roy’s world. While Gabriel’s hands and heavy shoes symbolize the threat of violence at home, the streets of Harlem are dangerous too. One boy “drowned in the river,” and the rockpile itself is a scene of violence each week. (16). The streets are seen by both boys as a place of sin, and they sit above them on the fire escape safe from the wickedness of the street and the terror of their apartment. John shuns both of these, feeling that watching the sinners makes him too close to sin, though he still cannot look away. Meanwhile, Roy’s attraction to violence and sin is insurmountable. In their world, it is harder to avoid violence than to participate in it, and Baldwin suggests that there are no alternatives. Even John who doesn’t seek violence out is threatened by it through Gabriel. Moreover, he cannot avoid looking at violence from his perch on the fire escape. Indeed, John becomes transfixed watching the boys fighting over the rockpile, forgetting for a second that the boys fighting are not strangers but include his little brother.

The rockpile is more than just a place for violence. It is a form of entertainment for the boys like Roy who seek it out. Roy has fun participating in the fight, even rising briefly to the top before being knocked down and wounded by a can. The pile is a place, then, in which Black boys beat each other up for temporary supremacy before being knocked back down. It is a miniature America, a harsh space in which Black men cannot ascend to the top but are encouraged to hurt each other in hopes of rising up for a moment. Their violence never transforms the pile and only leaves them as victims, but still they seek it out, hoping to hurt each other rather than confront their own lack of power and the racist society that keeps them powerless. The rockpile, thus, serves as a metaphor for race in the United States.

The rockpile is also a religious symbol. The boys are fascinated by the rockpile because of the fights that occur there but also because of the mythology that surrounds it. Their aunt told them the rockpile could not be removed “because without it the subway cars underground would fly apart, killing all the people” (15). Thus, the rockpile is a space of great power that protects “all the people” from danger. Additionally, John sees the rockpile as a place that takes the dead when he watches the funeral for the boy who drowned in the river. He looks on as the “small procession disappeared within the house, which stood beside the rockpile” (17). The violence that occurs there on Saturday is also transformative, then, as the boys fight in an arena of spiritual life and death. Intrigued by this power, Roy knows, because he is Gabriel’s favorite, that no harm will actually come to him there, while John is scared of the rockpile because he knows Gabriel does not even need an excuse to hit him. Roy only knows power to be—though threatening—forgiving and loving as his father is to him, while John only knows power that hurts him. Roy is even reminded of the experience of being on the rockpile by “his father’s touch,” implying that the two sources of power are linked (23). Gabriel is a reverend who, thus, represents the power of God to the boys, so Gabriel’s power and the rockpile’s power are both godlike for good or ill.

Religion emerges in other areas of the text as well. Most of the main characters have names with biblical connotations. In the Bible, Gabriel is an archangel who saves Elizabeth by giving her the power to conceive. Her son is John the Baptist, who baptizes Jesus Christ. The other two children, Delilah and Paul, also have biblical names. Delilah betrays her husband Samson, and Paul is a person who spreads the word of Jesus after converting to Christianity. Roy, interestingly, does not have religious connotations, but his name is similar to “roi,” the French word for “king,” and Gabriel certainly treats him like royalty while ignoring or punishing John for being conceived by someone else. Finally, the Grimes’s last name connotes their harsh living conditions, which stand in sharp contrast to their religious and lofty first names.

The juxtaposition of those names—as well as Gabriel’s violence— serve as subtle criticisms of religious piety. Gabriel is a reverend who scares his children, and John is afraid of sin. Elizabeth is ashamed of her past and, by extension, John, whom she feels protective toward because he was conceived in sin and because Gabriel will never let anyone forget that. Yet it is Roy alone who sins by fighting other boys, but he is forgiven for it in a way John can never be, even though John’s sin of being born was in no way his decision. At the end of the story, Elizabeth prevents violence for one afternoon. But John is left submissive to his father’s power, forced to physically bend his head down to pick up his father’s shoe, the manifestation of the threat his father poses despite his strict faith. The religion of “The Rockpile” as a whole, then, is one based on punishing supposed misdeeds rather than on celebrating love and life. Gabriel and the rockpile, both of which serve as God’s representatives to John, are cruel and unforgiving, tormenting him for things he has no control over; he could not choose to be born anymore than he could prevent Roy from ignoring Elizabeth’s orders.