Structure

The Message is organized into four sections, each of which presents a distinct, standalone essay. They appear in the following order: Part 1, “Journalism Is Not a Luxury,” Part 2, “On Pharaohs,” Part 3, “Bearing the Flaming Cross,” and Part 4, “The Gigantic Dream.” Coates has ordered the essays in this way to gradually develop his overarching arguments. “Journalism Is Not a Luxury” is the shortest of the essays and establishes Coates primary points of study for the entirety of the collection. In this essay, Coates holds that “this tradition of writing, of drawing out a common humanity is indispensable to our future, if only because what must be cultivated and cared for must first be seen” (16). This notion permeates the subsequent four essays. In “Journalism Is Not a Luxury,” Coates combines reflections on writing, art, and his own childhood to formulate his argument; he combines the first-person singular, first-person plural...