Answer:
Explanation:
The title of this section has certain thematic significance: "The Seventh Day" is a biblical allusion referring to Genesis 2, verses 1-3: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. . . . " The biblical seventh day is a respite and a day of reward, a holy day of celebration and rests from the previous days' work in which God had completed his creation, and "God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."
In the short, opening paragraph of the novel, Baldwin introduces several conflicts and issues in the life of one of the central characters of the novel, John Grimes. These various issues include John's conflict with religion in general and the ministry specifically (as evidenced in the narrator's observations that "Everyone had always said he would be a preacher just like his father . . . ;" "John, without ever really thinking about, had come to believe it;" and by the age of 14, " . . . it was already too late" to change this fate); the conflict between John and his father; the conflict with his society (as represented by the "everyones" in this paragraph and their collective expectation that he would become a preacher); and the conflicts associated with pubescence (he is just turning 14).