This thesis aims to read James Baldwin¡¦s Another Country to examine why and how he uses this novel to interrogate black nationalist discourses that inform the sexist and heterosexist biases in mid-century America. I would argue that Baldwin, in writing this novel, adopts an ambivalent narrative strategy both to ostensibly compromise on the heterosexual matrix politically and culturally scripted by black activists, and to critique the black hyperbolic masculinism endorsed and performed by them as itself a tragic consequence of white racism. Whereas black nationalists carry the Black Macho agenda into practice to redeem their manliness, Baldwin suspects that the heterosexist imperative of black machismo may end up infringing the rights of gender and sexual minorities. I thus argue, in Chapter One, that Baldwin writes Another Country to negotiate an oblique response to the conundrum he feels as both an artist and a black leader. To explain how his conundrum takes shape, I attempt in Chapter Two to lay bare the hegemonic masculinist ideologies embedded in anti-racist discourses. Drawing on this historical and theoretical investigation as my interpretive scaffold, I would in the following three chapters elaborate on how the novelist exemplifies his narrative technique via his male figures in Another Country. In doing so, Baldwin can, I would propose, assert that racial justice and sexual freedom must concur to effectuate blacks¡¦ autonomy. As such, I conclude my thesis by suggesting that Baldwin never intends ¡§another country¡¨ to be an idyllic landscape wherein Eric ostensibly plays out as a ¡§sexual savior¡¨ and betters other characters¡¦ self-recognition. Another Country instead illustrates a contested site where discourses on black nationalism, black male sexuality, and black masculinity come into a productive dialogism. Another Country, that is, can be best interpreted as Baldwin¡¦s investigation into the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in the sixties, and his consistent reformulation of individual identity as fluid, labile, and multiple.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0123107-171949 |
| Date | 23 January 2007 |
| Creators | Hsu, Shih-chan |
| Contributors | Shu-li Chang, none, Fu-jen Chen |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0123107-171949 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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