UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff SSoouutthh CCaarroolliinnaa SScchhoollaarr CCoommmmoonnss Senior Theses Honors College 5-5-2017 RRaaccee,, GGeennddeerr,, aanndd EExxiillee iinn HHeemmiinnggwwaayy''ss TThhee SSuunn AAllssoo RRiisseess aanndd BBaallddwwiinn''ss GGiioovvaannnnii''ss RRoooomm Abby E. Gould Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Gould, Abby E., "Race, Gender, and Exile in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and Baldwin's Giovanni's Room" (2017). Senior Theses. 158. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses/158 This Thesis is brought to you by the Honors College at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RACE, GENDER, AND EXILE IN HEMINGWAY’S THE SUN ALSO RISES AND BALDWIN’S GIOVANNI’S ROOM By Abby E. Gould Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Honors from the South Carolina Honors College May 2017 Approved: Greg Forter Director of Thesis Eli Jelly-Schapiro Second Reader Steve Lynn, Dean For South Carolina Honors College RACE, GENDER, AND EXILE IN HEMINGWAY’S THE SUN ALSO RISES AND BALDWIN’S GIOVANNI’S ROOM ABBY E. GOULD TABLE OF CONTENTS Thesis Summary 3 Introduction 6 Chapter One: The Sun Also Rises 12 Chapter Two: Giovanni’s Room 32 Conclusion 52 Bibliography 55 2 THESIS SUMMARY This senior thesis for the South Carolina Honors College conducts a literary analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Across these two texts, I focus on expatriates, examining the psychological trauma that ensues when they are forced to define their “self” not in terms of where they are, but in terms of who they really are. These challenges to one’s self, I argue, illuminate the complexity of gender and sexual identity as well as the social structures that assign values to certain forms or expressions of masculinity. I begin by establishing unsatisfiable desire as the central problem of each of these novels. Both Hemingway and Baldwin assert the futility of chasing desire in the modern world, despite expatriates’ attempts to seek it outside their home country. Each author approaches this problematic of lack through the lens of a man in crisis. Hemingway’s Jake Barnes and Baldwin’s David are each “othered” in some way – Jake by his emasculating war wound and David by his homosexuality. Each man seeks in Paris some desire which he cannot achieve in the United States, not recognizing the debilitating nature of searching for a desire which is inherently unattainable. In approaching The Sun Also Rises, I trace the psychological dilemma that arises from shifting cultural views of masculinity after World War I. Although Jake expresses disdain for those men who apparently degrade their masculinity by indulging in romantic fantasies, I argue that he himself cannot escape the pull toward unsatisfiable desire. Jake lives with a physical reminder of the destruction of war – he has lost his penis – and thus he acts as an emblem of the shifting notions of “authentic” masculinity in the postwar era as well as the anxiety that arises when a man must refigure his own internalized gender identity. I identify the three challenges to Jake’s masculinity that appear throughout the novel: Robert Cohn, who succumbs to “unmanly” 3 romantic notions of escape but nevertheless can satisfy desire in a way that Jake cannot; Pedro Romero, the matador who represents the ultimate macho expression of masculinity that combines power and control; and Lady Brett Ashley, whose New Woman status complicates the social structures of masculinity and femininity within a single person. As a response to these threats, the novel establishes a code of “authentic” masculinity that requires a pained resignation to the fact of unsatisfiable desire in the modern condition. I argue, however, that ultimately Jake cannot consistently live up to his own code of authentic masculinity, and the novel thus illustrates the challenge of modern desire, rather than offers a solution to its unattainability. In turning to Giovanni’s Room, I focus on masculinity and desire from the margins of society: David is a gay man after World War II, written by a gay black author who was essentially exiled to Europe for his scandalous writing of homosexuality and blackness. I begin by establishing the threat to masculinity in this novel not as a physical wound, but as gay desire that threatens to upset the entire social and cultural order of gender. Because this social order is so heavily internalized, Baldwin is able to present the dilemma of unsatisfiable desire as both a personal psychological struggle and a key flaw in the social construct of gender identity. I also examine the ties in the novel between homosexuality and darkness, through which Baldwin subtly but powerfully invokes the black experience – despite the fact that none of the characters in the novel are African American. In doing this, I argue that Giovanni’s Room critiques the cultural linking of blackness and homosexuality as equally “dirty” identities. Because David has internalized this social construct in his upbringing as a white man in America, his own internal battle with his sexuality can be extended to a broader commentary on the societal prohibition of satisfiable desire for both homosexual and nonwhite Americans. Thus, the proper response to unsatisfiable desire is not Hemingway’s pained resignation, but rather an acceptance of the 4 fractures and inconsistencies within one’s self – an acceptance of the discord between genuine identity and the performance of a socially acceptable gender identity. In considering these two novels side by side, I argue not that one author’s form of examination is more valid than the other; rather, my goal is to illuminate the unavoidable differences in novels written from and about different places of privilege. The modern condition is one that authors often render as chaotic, troubling, and bleak; Hemingway and Baldwin certainly contribute to and develop this tradition. However, while they each demonstrate the despair and confusion of the moment of realizing unsatisfiable desire, the sources of this dissatisfaction are somewhat different. Considering these authors together is not common, but I argue that their comparison enriches our discussion of identity – especially contested identity – within the globalized context of expatriation. Hemingway and Baldwin both link physical displacement with psychological displacement, allowing us through literary analysis to examine the processes and problems of self-identification. 5 INTRODUCTION Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (1956) examine the consequences and meanings of expatriation. Hemingway writes after World War I, as an exemplary member of the so-called “lost generation,” preoccupied and tormented by the industrialized forms of destruction that the War unleashed. Baldwin, on the other hand, writes following World War II, a time of profound social change and tension between groups, even in an environment still reveling in an American victory. Although the two books’ protagonists—Jake Barnes and David—share experiences of expatriation and a similar set of psychological conflicts, ultimately the two novels differ in their treatment of exile and despair. For Hemingway, as a straight white man, it is possible to fetishize the desperation and hopelessness of psychological exile and isolation as simply a condition of the modern moment – it presents as an unavoidable crisis of attempted reinvention after the chaos of a global war. Baldwin, as a gay black man, does not have the same privilege as Hemingway; he is not writing from the culturally superior – or at least secure – position. Thus, Baldwin’s examination of exile is more multiple and critical. Baldwin cannot ignore the social forces that make exile attractive to Americans, nor does he shy away from the self-imposed shame and fear that amplifies the internalization of these structures. This is not to say that Hemingway is only ignorant, whereas Baldwin is completely enlightened; however, it is crucial that we consider Hemingway’s straight white privilege in an analysis of his commentary on race and gender that comes from the social center rather than the margins. Both Hemingway and Baldwin connect the issue of modern exile to gender. The stress of maintaining a conventionally masculine identity lies at the center of Jake and David’s internal conflicts, although the sources and manifestations of these tensions are radically different. Each 6 man seeks in exile to consolidate his beleaguered masculinity: Jake in response to a phallic war wound, and David in response to what we shall see is a kind of homosexual panic. Yet each also discovers in Paris repeated “reminders” or challenges to the effort at consolidated, inviolable manhood. For Jake, this challenge comes primarily from Robert Cohn, a figure paradoxically coded as “unmanly” despite retaining the penis that Jake lacks. His gender identity is also threatened by Brett, who makes Jake’s impotence all-too-tangible a barrier to their relationship, bringing his wound uncomfortably close to full consciousness and direct acknowledgment. In addition to exacerbating his wound, Brett threatens Jake by subverting traditional ideals of femininity– she has short hair, she is promiscuous and independent, and she even has a man’s name. In other words, she undermines the stable gender binary that Jake is in part committed to retaining. For David, the challenge arises from his relationship with Giovanni – a relationship that acts upon and exposes the part of his identity that brings him the most shame. Pursuing a relationship with Giovanni is contingent upon David relinquishing his grip on the norms of socially acceptable manhood, and recognizing those parts of his identity that do not align with his self-perception. He refuses to accept a “housewife” role in his and Giovanni’s gender dynamic, and overcompensates for his feeling of masculine inferiority by continuing to pursue a doomed heterosexual relationship with Hella. Unable to reconcile his queer desire with his performed self-image of conventional manliness, David suffers from a psychological chaos that leads him to self-destruction in an attempt at self-reinvention. At the core of each novel is the problem of unsatisfiable desire. In Paris, Americans are always fleeing to the next locale, drowning themselves in alcohol, and hoping that in this place 7 they might finally achieve some level of satisfaction.1 Jake’s desire is for Brett, who would presumably, if he had a penis, enable him to have a fulfilling relationship and resolve his inner tension. However, the novel insists that desire inherently cannot be satisfied. Jake sees dissatisfaction and failure all around him: in Cohn, in Brett, and even in Romero. He renders this dissatisfaction as simply an unavoidable result of modern life after the war. David’s desire is also unsatisfiable, but in this case the reasons are social (not naturalizing). His desire for Giovanni and his desire for a socially acceptable manhood are mutually exclusive – when David decides to pursue the latter (by being with Hella), he must deny and repress the former. Unlike Hemingway’s analysis of unsatisfiable desire as something inevitable, Baldwin’s assessment critiques the incompatibility of homosexuality and “manliness,” presenting resignation and hopelessness as results of societal pressure unfairly placed on socially exiled groups. Underlying all of this is the tension of race. Although not explicitly stated in Giovanni’s Room, blackness is implicitly conflated with homosexuality. Joey, David’s first lover, is described as having a “brown body,” which is in turn linked to images of darkness and filth. Giovanni, in his first appearance, is “insolent and dark and leonine” (28). Through this connection, Baldwin exposes the shame that black men, gay men, and especially black gay men are made to feel within society. They become exiled and psychologically destroyed. In Giovanni’s case, this exile and destruction are taken to the extreme through his execution, a violent enactment of societal shaming (although he is not executed for his homosexuality). Crucially, no character in Giovanni’s Room is actually African or African American. The reasons behind this authorial choice are complex. I read it as partly a case of self-preservation; writing a novel about homosexuality in 1956 might be difficult, but a novel about black 1 See Miller (121-124) for a thorough explanation of Hemingway and Baldwin’s attempt to “demythologize the American self in the European context” through their examination of expatriates. Miller articulates why foreignness – and especially Paris as a “war zone” – is a crucial and mythical setting to narratives of lost identity and integrity. 8 homosexuality could well be impossible.2 Indeed, as Armengol (2012) points out, Baldwin’s removal of the subject of race was partially a response to “both the racist sexualization of African Americans by the white community and the homophobia of the African American community” (673). By only metaphorically linking some characters to darkness, Baldwin leaves at least one element of social norm – whiteness – superficially intact.3 Furthermore, Baldwin does not want to risk conflating black experience with homosexual experience. Blackness and homosexuality each contribute to one’s identity, self-image, and social marginalization differently. If Baldwin were to make his gay characters literally black, he would invite the dangerous assumption that the dilemmas of black and gay identity could be addressed equally. Instead, by only hinting at darkness as a correlation to queerness, Baldwin illustrates our own internalized parallels between otherness, filth, and shame, rather than asserting the validity of those parallels.4 In The Sun Also Rises, racial otherness is more explicit, but also more complicated. Two men who are presumably white – Cohn and Romero – are rendered as racial others. Cohn is Jewish, and Romero is a Spaniard, and Jake perceives both as embodying a masculinity from which he feels cut off. Their racial identity heightens his anxiety about his inadequacy; if racial otherness is the condition of real manliness, he has less hope of achieving a viable masculine identity. Thus, race compounds Jake’s resignation to the inevitability of dissatisfaction. It is important to note, however, that this racial otherness is a fiction, articulated from the perspective 2 Armengol (671) and Stephanie Li (131) each point out that Baldwin was famously told to burn the manuscript of Giovanni’s Room, and Knopf, the publisher of Baldwin’s first novel Go Tell in on the Mountain, refused publication. 3 Additionally, Armengol identifies the historic racialization of Italians as literally nonwhite; it was only upon their immigration to the United States that they became coded as white, and even this process did not fully appear until World War II. In this context, Giovanni “as an Italian in Europe may be considered nonwhite or black” (678). 4 My analysis recalls Mae Henderson’s understanding of the “construction of whiteness” as a freeing tool for Baldwin to “interrogate the complexities of his own identity as writer, as American, and as homosexual, outside the sexually and politically repressive climate of postwar America” (313). 9