"Decide Who You Are": Identity and the Question of Love in James Baldwin's Fiction and Essays

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine Baldwin’s legacy from a new perspective, trying to overcome the old dichotomies and generalizations that have traditionally been associated with his figure and discussing the author’s own perception of his artistic and human identity. James Baldwin is regarded as one of the most influential voices of the twentieth century. Although scholars and critics agree on acknowledging Baldwin’s towering role in the history of American literature, they seem unable to agree on the reasons that make his work so influential. Some scholars value his essays and underestimate his works of fiction, others emphasize his role within the civil rights movement but completely dismiss Baldwin’s preoccupation with themes such as sexuality and love. This dissertation is divided into four chapters. In the first one – “Life of the Man Behind the Legend” – I discuss the most important moments of Baldwin’s personal and artistic development, focusing in particular on his complex relationship with his father, on the years spent in France and on the pivotal moment he decided to come back to the USA. In the second chapter – “The Question of Racial Identity” – I investigate the tension between Baldwin’s artistic ambitions and his moral commitment to the civil rights cause. In the third chapter – “The Question of Sexual Identity” – I discuss Baldwin’s ambivalent attitude towards his sexuality and how it influenced his work. The last chapter – “The Question of Love” – revolves around one of the most important and yet less investigated themes of Baldwin’s oeuvre: the redemptive power of love. In the last ten years the interest in Baldwin’s work has grown exponentially. For the purpose of my research, I had therefore the opportunity to consult many insightful critical studies. To better contextualize Baldwin’s newfound popularity, I find Michael Eric Dyson’s book What Truth Sounds Like (2018) and Melanie Walsh’s essay “Tweets of a Native Son: The Quotation and Recirculation of James Baldwin from Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter” (2018) particularly helpful. However, the two texts that have helped the most in my research are: James Baldwin: A Biography (1994) written by Baldwin’s official biographer David Leeming and All Those Strangers (2015) written by Douglas Field. While Leeming offers an intimate and honest portrait of Baldwin, showing his vulnerabilities and the struggles he had to face throughout his life, Field explores some of the contradictions and the ambivalences embedded in Baldwin’s work that are too often dismissed. For the purpose of my study I focus primarily on Baldwin’s essays, novels and short stories. The primary sources analyzed in this dissertation are: Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953); Notes of a Native Son (1955); Giovanni’s Room (1956); Nobody Knows My Name (1961); Another Country (1962); The Fire Next Time (1963); Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone (1968) and two short stories from the collection Going To Meet the Man (1965).