Over the course of the 1960’s James Arthur Baldwin emerged as one of the great influencers of writing regarding problems of society. John sees Roy emerging from the pile with some friends, his shirt ripped but himself looking in fine spirits. Elizabeth feels a particular need to defend John from Gabriel because he is her blood relation alone. One could argue that Gabriel, by taking John into his home, gives him life. The most significant triangle of names in the story is that of John, Elizabeth, and Gabriel. James Baldwin’s “The Rockpile” was first published in in the author’s first and only short-story collection, Going to Meet the Man.

Only John was nameless and a stranger, living, unalterable testimony to his mother’s days in sin.' It was a strange place to find a mass of natural rock jutting out of the ground and someone, probably Aunt Florence, had once told them that the rock was there and could not be taken away because without it the One afternoon, Elizabeth goes over to their neighbor Sister McCandless's apartment to chat. The titular formation of rocks that occurs in a vacant lot between two houses captures the imagination of Roy and looms large in his mind as a manifestation of supernatural and even religious forces. After she makes her proclamation, she trembles in place at the possible consequences. ''The Rockpile'': ''The Rockpile'' is a 1965 short story by American author and social commentator James Baldwin. A topic of the story is alienation, and feeling neglected.

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