Rufus and Vivaldo, who are longtime friends, have a relationship that revolves around power. In this way, the relationships between the characters become the most important aspect of Another Country, aside from what makes them the “Other.” The four hundred and thirty six page novel is filled to the brim with connection after connection between people belonging to different communities, such as Vivaldo and Eric, and the outcome of their loves. The entanglement of characters becomes almost impossible to navigate as chapters wear on, and each action of one character results in repercussions for the others.īaldwin’s novel revolves around a single question: Can people who belong to different communities form lasting bonds? Is that thought truly too ridiculous for the human brain to comprehend? Baldwin takes this question and explores it the way one would with an undiscovered land. Eric, former lover of Rufus, is a gay man who sleeps with Cass Selenski, a married and well-off white woman. Vivaldo, Rufus’s white best friend, falls in love with Rufus’s sister, Ida, and similarly, their relationship devolves into a cycle of abuse. A white woman, Leona, falls in love with Rufus, whose abusive tendencies drive her to an emotional breakdown. Rufus Scott, the protagonist of the novel’s first chapter, is a formerly homeless Black man who was forced into sex work for money. In America, the Self not only includes white, but also straight, male, cisgender, and whatever else that may grant one privilege.Īlmost every character of Another Country is touched by the “Other” - either by being defined as such or through their relationships. In a global case, the Self is Europe and the Western world. ”Other” is defined as everything that exists outside of oneself. Another Country, which takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, explores the theme of the “Other” in great detail.
Published at the flight of America’s civil rights movement, the effects of prejudice are evident in Baldwin’s longest and most complex work. Vivaldo and Eric are just two characters of Baldwin’s Another Country who suffer under the heavy weight of love. Vivaldo goes on, “And haven’t we got the right to hope-for more? So that we can really stretch into whoever we really are?” In bed beside his lover, Vivaldo, a protagonist of James Baldwin’s Another Country (1962), responds to a declaration of love: “.what can we really do for each other except-just love each other and be each other’s witness?” Eric, the man Vivaldo is sleeping with, sits staring as the complication of their love rips through him.
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