Every coming out story must deal with the characters’ struggles of being in the closet. The stage of not yet being able to be open about one’s identity can be the most difficult and turbulent point in dealing with their queer identity. It is a...

Novels with a cast of primarily male characters can include varying amounts of feminist ideas. Although Giovanni’s Room mainly focuses on the lives of gay men, James Baldwin includes various feminist themes. Through the men in Giovanni’s Room, ...

Throughout the novella Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, there is a struggle for David to be understood not only by society, but by himself. By showing an internal struggle in David between being able to be completely honest with the events taking...

In order to truly love, one must be open and vulnerable with another person. James Baldwin’s prolific novel, Giovanni’s Room, depicts a young American man whose inability to be intimate with others because of his own learned shame is what...

In James Baldwin’s novel Giovanni’s Room, references to wealth are juxtaposed with moments of sexuality in order to comment on how economic standing influences gender identity construction, while making a larger critical statement about the...

The relationship between sex and power within literature is incredibly complex. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway features the main character Jake, who faces the relationship between sex and power via his impotence, as well as his love for a...

Intimacy is a topic widely discussed and desired. Many think of intimacy as a sort of spectrum, and most hope to experience something as close to the real thing as possible. In Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin says that intimacy is not a spectrum, but...

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin artfully illuminates the struggles the main character John faces when his race, religion, and family structure all intersect on his fourteenth birthday. As John sits on the threshold between his...

James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on The Mountain is an autobiographical look into the corruptible nature of the black male condition as it relates to the church. John Grimes is a young boy but his narrative suggests that his existence is shaped by...

In Go Tell It On the Mountain, James Baldwin discusses the power that can be found in secularity and in religion. The novel starts with John Grimes waking up to his fourteenth birthday in Harlem, 1935. The entire novel spans a few days, but as the...

In James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, religion functions not only as form of worship but also as a covert site of sexual expression. In the novel’s opening chapters, Baldwin often characterizes religious worship in language that borders...

God’s Apostles Bring Redemption In Every Life.

Shame, blame, all the same.

Good Artists Breathe Reality Into Existence, Lies.

Shame, blame, all the same.

This is Gabriel’s creative process.

Gabriel’s creative process is one that dwells in shame,...

Religion and spirituality are significant facets in the African-American communities as the church has been an emblem of power and freedom from the period of slavery into the civil rights era. Go Tell It on the Mountain as a fictional...

Prior to the events of the Stonewall Riots, queer and LGBTQ+ movements within the United States ran primarily underground and parallel to the rest of American social activist movements. Marginalized writers and authors during the early- to...

James Baldwin and Richard Wright focus most of their works on the suffering of blacks in opposition to the overwhelming and repressive nature of racism that contorts the very existence of black bodies, specifically men. Wright and Baldwin assert...

The Sexualization of the African-American in “Going to Meet the Man” James Baldwin’s short story “Going to Meet the Man” explores the interweaving of racism with the sexual violence against the African-American in 1965 southern America. Baldwin...

James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man” depicts the psychosexual methodologies used by a white racist sheriff who both fears and fetishizes African Americans. Through the character of Jesse, Baldwin is stating that the sexual myth of black male...

The cultivation of community is a fundamental concept of Christianity and Judaism. A certain set of values, beliefs and traditions are held by the groups who practice each religion in a shared journey toward salvation or an experience with God....

The term American Dream has undergone several interpretations since its coinage by James Truslow Adams in his book Epic of America, he defines American Dream as a means that promises an individual, regardless of their birth and social stature,...

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The history of the United States from the eyes of the "American Negro," to use the now-dated literary term, is both bleak and cruel. A...

America claims to be a ‘melting pot,’ a land in which people of all cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities come together to live in peace and prosperity. This assertion of acceptance and shared culture is merely a goal to strive towards and,...

In James Baldwin’s novel Another Country nearly all of the central characters experience anxiety, confusion, or conflict when it comes to the interweaving of their bodies, identities, and desires. The character of Eric however, a homosexual...

Dwight McBride’s critical essay, Straight Black Studies: On African American Studies, James Baldwin, and Black Queer Studies, is a key contribution to the study of gender and sexuality in literature. In his essay, McBride identifies the absence of...

I encountered a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself. - James Baldwin

James Baldwin's writings are most famous for their complexity of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies during 20th century America. His...