What is the literary element or device in James Baldwin's short story, "Going to Meet the Man"?

The literary element or device used in James Baldwin's
short story, "Going to Meet the Man" is
flashback.

Flashback is a literary device used to provide
information to the reader by returning to an earlier time. Flashback allows the author
to interrupt the story's flow to provide essential information for better understanding
of a character or a conflict.

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A method of narration in which present action is
temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events--usually in the form
of a character's memories, dreams, narration, or even authorial
commentary...

The story
begins with Jesse, a bigoted, white, deputy sheriff who is trying to recount to his wife
an event of that day whereby he beat a civil rights leader badly. Jesse feels threatened
by the black society and hatred for the race. He feels that his world is out of control
as he watches the changes taking place in the society around him, in particular, the
struggle for blacks to earn the right to vote.

Whereas he
feels he is justified in his actions, a song—a black spiritual—returns Jesse to an event
in the past that has scarred him, perhaps for life. As a child, in an atmosphere of
"entertainment," he and his family "go on a picnic" to watch a black man (accused of
raping a white woman), publicly castrated, burned and mutilated. The boy sees this
moment through the eyes of his parents. His mother has a look of rapture on her face;
his father earns his love and respect because he had:

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...carried him through a mighty test, had
revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life
forever.

In this moment, the
child Jesse was believed he was experiencing the "greatest joy of his life." However,
the experience has left him angry and paranoid; his identity as a man is linked to the
murder of another man: steeped in hatred and brutality. It is the flashback that allows
us to see why Jesse is so impotent, not only sexually with his wife, Grace, but also in
terms of his ability to be a decent human being. The flashback brings information to the
forefront of Jesse's brain, allowing that perhaps seeing this memory from a different
place in his life, that he may well be salvageable—better able to understand the
suffering and pain he experiences as an adult, based upon this horrific experience from
his childhood. This knowledge may allow him to escape the damage done to him as a
child.

If
freedom is an escape from one's inheritance, the story offers on assurance that such
escape is possible.