\u201cOther(ed) American in Paris: Henry James, James Baldwin, and the Subversion of Identity\u201d by Eric Savoy addresses a provocative subject matter particularly on the subject of identity. On page 338, Savoy notes, \u201cIf knowledge of self – self as implicated, situated subject, but simultaneously as \u2018other\u2019 and therefore as resisting agent – is the goal of Henry James and James Baldwin, then \u2018identity\u2019 is a dangerous word to describe that goal. Whereas Baldwin and James construct their examinations of self in terms of contraries and doubleness, \u2018identity\u2019 posits sameness: the sameness of a person at all times or in all circumstances.\u201d In \u201cGo Tell It on the Mountain\u201d the topic of identity and knowing one\u2019s self are focal points in understanding the characters of each novel. However, the analysis of the word \u201cidentity\u201d makes one delve deeper into the appropriateness of the word in its use of defining the characters.
According to Savoy, if the understanding is that identity is found in a person’s sameness, John has none. John is an outsider in almost every environment he exists in and as a result, he cannot have a sameness or an identity with others in the novel. John, although a son and a brother, is not the same as his other siblings at home. John is not the son of Gabriel and is treated differently, but he feels the pressure to act differently than his siblings. Whether it is the difference between his baby picture and his siblings\u2019 or the hatred he sees in his father\u2019s eyes when he looks at him, he knows he is not the same. At church, John outwardly lives up to his father\u2019s name and tries hard to forge an identity centered around the dedicated work of the son of a preacher. However, internally, John is far from that salvation. John struggles with seeing the light. Between the hypocrisy he sees in the teaching of the Lord versus his father’s actions or God’s role as an executioner and nothing else, John is not \u201cat home\u201d in the church. Although physically with his family and fellow churchgoers, John is not in unison or in sameness with them as even after he is \u201csaved\u201d he cannot find the spirit in his soul that he awaited to bring him closer to God one day. Finally, John could not find a home accepting of his sexuality. John\u2019s first sin of masturbation was inspired by the thought of older boys in the bathroom. His family’s religion taught him that homosexuality was a clear sin. It was introduced and promoted as a reason for which God would strike him. This again left him with a void of identity. Savoy\u2019s piece outlines Baldwin and James\u2019 frustration with the American failure to recognize otherness. John\u2019s life is a manifestation of that reality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cOther(ed) American in Paris: Henry James, James Baldwin, and the Subversion of Identity\u201d by Eric Savoy addresses a provocative subject matter particularly on the subject of identity. On page 338, Savoy notes, \u201cIf knowledge of self – self as implicated, situated subject, but simultaneously as \u2018other\u2019 and therefore as resisting agent – is the goal … Continue reading Identity?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3906,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[480788],"tags":[8878],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-go-tell-it-on-the-mountain","tag-identity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3906"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}