The Gender-Conscious Sculptor: James Baldwin's Construction of American Manhood

The great problem is how to be—in the best sense of that kaleidoscope word—a man.

                                                            —James Baldwin “The Male Prison”

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In contemporary society, many Americans have embraced the ideology that American masculinity is not a fixed construct; however, James Baldwin’s construction of male characters asserts that masculinity is complex and fluid, not an identity to be enacted through a rigid standard. 1940s protest writers shaped how Baldwin structured his novels as much as the characters within them. Black male writers of the 1940s, like Richard Wright and Chester Himes, depicted Black men as something to be feared. They developed and refined the blueprint of the type of Black masculinity fictitious characters should present, often as a threat. The way Baldwin builds masculinity actively pushes against the conventions set before him by building a spectrum of male identities. Baldwin creates a culture of resistance through this spectrum, standing firmly against the perceived historicity of how others were writing about Black masculinity while also responding to American idealism of masculinity. In removing socially assumed restrictions on racial identity and centering his body of work on how men survive in the world, Baldwin expands upon the notion of the masculine kaleidoscope. Baldwin writes characters exposed to social, physical, or emotional vulnerability, complicating prescriptive American masculinity. Baldwin understands that masculine identity is formed through affiliations, social expectations, and cultural continuity; therefore, his fictional works are littered with clues as to why he constructed complex male-gendered identity and how he understands manhood as a perpetually evolving spectrum of masculinity.

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I will first define idealistic American masculinity to understand how Baldwin resists and reshapes its conventional form. American masculinity holds behaviors and character traits traditionally associated with manhood, such as success, independence, physical strength, sexual vigor, courage, and lack of emotional impulse. Manhood is the demarcation from the feminine. Micheal Kimmel’s Manhood in America: A Cultural History suggests that, since infancy, America has had three ideals of manhood: Genteel Patriarch, Heroic Artisan, and Self-Made Man. The Self-Made Man was victorious at achieving dominance over the others; this is how America has idealistically viewed manhood. As mass factories began replacing small business shops and taking over family-owned farms, fathers no longer had business to pass on to their sons. Essentially, the Self-Made Man transpired from the socioeconomic collapse of previous ideals of manhood. Kimmel suggests that what defined the Self-Made Man was “success in the market, individual achievement, mobility, wealth. America expressed political autonomy; the Self-Made Man embodied economic autonomy” (23). No longer dependent on what was established and passed on to them, men could forge their own identity in the ever-expanding American landscape. Pushing away from the taint of working classes and aristocracy, the Self-Made Man became the dominant conception of American masculinity.

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Kimmel astutely traces patterns of manliness and manhood in America; however, his criticism of American manliness sidesteps the knowledge that these are constructed idealistic approaches to what influences performative manhood. The male gender does not exclusively fall under one or any of the three categories he detailed. These archetypes do not point to an evolution in manhood; instead, they signify “changing standards of manliness in the popular consciousness that influenced how men were perceived and judged by others and subtly influenced themselves” (McKay).  People have lives layered with complexity; through Baldwin’s essays, fiction and nonfiction, he extrapolates how he perceives what manhood is and what can be beyond the assumed standard heteronormative depiction of the male identity. Baldwin consciously constructs men who transcend the constraints of Self-Made Man identity by developing multifaceted characters who express themselves uniquely without forfeiting their masculinity.

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As a gender-conscience sculptor, James Baldwin constructed nuanced individuals with unique plights, strengths, vulnerabilities, and desires. Baldwin does not group American manhood into a singular category; rather, he suggests that identity is molded to function in society. He designs a spectrum of layered masculinity based on affiliations, social expectations, and cultural continuity. Baldwin places great importance on the individual; however, an individual cannot flourish or have contributing factors without a community to accept them. The two are not mutually exclusive as the individual shapes the community; the individual is, in turn, shaped by their community. Baldwin’s work explores the complex relationship between the community and the individual as he views the two as inextricably linked. This paper will analyze Baldwin’s constructed spectrum of American masculinity from the characters who have social authority and power within their community to those who lack social authority over anyone, including themselves. Through viewing male characters' obligation and responsibility within their community, we will understand Baldwin does not create a clear and concise blueprint for American masculinity but rather a complex, nuanced version of masculine layers.

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In “Going to Meet the Man,” we are introduced to Jesse, a white sheriff of a southern, no-name American town. Jesse is, arguably, one of Baldwin’s most grotesque depictions of masculinity, which grants the reader an unsettling amount of dread when Jessie reflects on or interacts with the Black people of his community. As a sheriff, Jessie has legal and physical authority within his community. Accustomed to having admiration from the white community and fear from the Black community, Jesse’s world is shaken when control begins slipping away from him. Protests are being held in his town, and Jesse does not have the ability or capacity to stop the protestors. He feels unsafe patrolling as “They thought that they knew where all the guns were, but they could not possibly know every move that was made in that secret place where the darkies lived” (Baldwin “Going to Meet” 237). The men who were his “models,” “friends of his fathers,” and the men who “taught him what it means to be a man” (Baldwin “Going to Meet” 236) were growing silent and remaining in the shadows. Jesse’s masculinity is formed around perceived power that he is struggling to keep; thus, in frustration at lack of control, his masculine identity becomes increasingly violent. This is a fight-or-flight response. Jesse can hang his head or scrape for every ounce of power and control he can beat back into submission. Baldwin suggests that “the real reason nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in negros…is that white men do not want their lives, self-image, or their property threatened” (Baldwin The Fire Next Time 59). This short story is explicitly violent; however, Baldwin only chooses to show what is happening inside the jail cell as that is the only place Jesse has a semblance of control.  Reflecting on the day's events, Jesse recalls he:

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“wanted to go over to him and pick him up and pistol whip him until the boy's head burst open like a melon. He began to tremble with what he believed was rage, sweat, both cold and hot raced down his body, the singing filled him as though it were a weird, uncontrollable, monstrous howling rumbling up from the depths of his own belly, he felt an icy fear rise in him and raise him up, and he shouted, he howled, ‘You lucky we pump some. white blood into you every once in a while-your women! Here is what I got for all the black bitches in the world-!’ Then he was, abruptly, almost too weak to stand; to his bewilderment, as horror, beneath his own fingers, he felt himself violently stiffen-with no warning at all; he dropped his hands and he stared at the boy and he left the cell.” (235)

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Jesse’s realization that he is sexually aroused when he is thinking about or acting out violence on a Black body is initially concerning to him; however, as he traces his history and the community that has shaped him, his disposition changes. 

 

It is during Jesse’s flashback to the night he witnessed his first lynching that Baldwin exhibits how white masculinity is tethered to the denigration of Black masculinity.  Critics have asserted that in the short story, Baldwin dehumanizes the Black community as a way to pander and entertain white readership. Jesse’s flashback to the night of the lynching details the lynching, castration, and burning of a human being. These acts were performed in an animalistic, celebratory fashion, leading to the desensitization and dehumanizing of the white community.  Jesse remembers, “One of his father's friends reached up and in his hands he held a knife: and Jesse wished that he had been that man” (Baldwin 247). As a young boy who was unaware of what was taking place or why, he could see the control and power his father’s friend possessed, and it became a core value of what he would strive to perfect in his developing masculinity.

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The white lyncher holding the man’s testicles in his hand “symbolizes two compounded and inextricably linked forms of oppression: white patriarchy's false construction of hypersexualized black masculinity, as well as its subsequent attempts to repress and destroy that very construction” (Taylor). Rodger Whitlow suggests Jesse is unable to have complete sexual gratification without either the fantasy of or the reality of racial humiliation and torture. The physical removal of the sex organ is not merely a method of torture but also a way for men to procure a sense of their sexual authority. In No Name in the Streets, Baldwin comments, “men have an enormous need to debase other men—and only because they are men…it is absolutely certain that white men, who invented the nigger’s big black prick, are still at the mercy of this nightmare, and are still, for the most part, doomed in their own way or another, to attempt to make this prick their own” intersecting sex and violence (63). Nevertheless, Schmitt argues, “The myth of the giant Black penis is more intelligible in a setting where all men think of themselves as embodied in their sexual organ and, ultimately, estimate their own worth by the functioning of that organ.” Baldwin frequently writes about male genitalia in correspondence with masculinity “and the feelings of castration and emasculation that come with it, as ideology, as the very tool by which white America subordinated and marginalized African Americans” (Congdon). The short story, beginning with Jesse’s inability to perform sexually and ending with a somewhat vigorous sex scene with his wife, exposes Jesse’s self-revelation and acceptance of what drives his masculine impulses.

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Baldwin’s organization of “Going to Meet the Man” exemplifies the importance of the community’s influence on the individual identity. Jesse’s flashback to the night of the lynching and the extreme violence he witnessed while reflecting on the violence he perpetuated against Black men and women is crucial to understanding how Jesses perceives masculinity. Jesse’s perspectival shift from the immediate present to his past “relates the effects and causes of Jesse's angst. Implicit is the extent to which the community makes imminent its failure via its perverse and powerful desire to persist in fantastic crimes meant to perpetuate Black exclusion” (Whitlow). Assertion of power is critical to male dominance and identity in this community. The lynching scene traumatizes young Jesses; however, in this archetype of masculinity, trauma is not acknowledged. Instead, the trauma is morphed into adoration. After witnessing unspeakable brutality, “Jesse loved his father more than he had ever loved him. He felt that his father had carried him through a mighty test, had revealed to him a great secret which would be the key to his life forever” (Baldwin 248).  In this scene, the secret Jesse’s father unlocks is that “in the United States, violence and heroism have been made synonymous except when it comes to blacks” (Baldwin The Fire Next Time 58). The lynch mob glorifies their violence, unconcerned with the savagery and lack of humanity it builds within them and their community.

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In the essay “Unnamable Objects, Unspeakable Crimes,” Baldwin suggests, “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are consciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” Once Jesse’s nature returns to him, “he thought of the boy in the cell; he thought of the man in the fire; he thought of the knife and grabbed himself and stroked himself and a terrible sound, something between a high laugh and a howl came out of him” (249). Jesse is released from the pretense of being a good man and embraces the violence and cruelty communally infused into him. For Baldwin, the unveiling of Jesse’s past is connected to his understanding that the force of history is ever-present in how the present is influenced. Jesse is not constructed to satisfy white desire nor to be reduced to the simplistic view of a deranged or evil man; rather, Jesse is the embodiment of America’s racist social structure and a product of his community.

 

In the debut novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain, Baldwin manipulates masculinity by pushing against patriarchal righteous pretension and the heteronormative framework approved by the American masses. It has been declared a coming-of-age story for John, the protagonist; however, Baldwin’s use of non-linear structure allows readers to simultaneously see his father, Gabriel, coming of age and his struggles with what it looks like to be a man. Gabriel's beginnings highlight his ascension into the self-made man his community anticipated he would become. Because of Gabriel’s gender, it was assumed “he would go out one day into the world to do man’s work, and he needed meat, when there was any in the house, and clothes, whenever clothes could be bought, and the strong indulgence of his womenfolk, so that he would know how to be with women when he had a wife. And he needed the education” (Baldwin Go Tell It 67). Baldwin portrays Gabriel as a “man-child” as he essentially is cared for well into adulthood by women with the hopes that one day he wakes up the man he is ‘supposed’ to be. Despite the pleadings of his mother, it was the church that established Gabriel’s ascension to manhood. Again, pushing back against patriarchal righteousness, it was not through submission or humbling; instead, “he wanted power—he wanted to know himself to be the Lord’s anointed…he wanted to be master, to speak with authority which could only come from God”; Gabriel found power in assuming godliness (Baldwin Go Tell It 89). Godliness never informed Gabriel’s masculinity; it was validated through the authority and power his religious community gave him.

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Gabriel is an immensely complex character as he reflects the righteous pretension found in systems of religious communities. Though immersed in the church community, it is noted that there was a fall from grace. Gabriel was once a pastor, a flock leader, and closer to God than most, but not in Harlem. Gabriel’s masculinity is informed through his claim to righteousness, yet the righteousness he exudes is a farce, meaning Gabriel’s sense of masculinity is in a constant state of flux. Similarly to Jesse, when masculinity is dependent on how it is projected on others, masculine assertion comes through in violence, control, and dominance over those who appear inferior. Gabriel has a violent temper, is physically abusive to his wife and John, lacks empathy, and prioritizes how his community perceives him over his family unit. The abandonment of his illegitimate child demonstrates this. After an affair with Esther results in an unexpected pregnancy, Esther argues, “I ain’t the holy one. You’s a married man, and you’s a preacher—and who you thinks folks going to blame most?” (Baldwin Go Tell It 131). Gabriel urges her to marry another man, any other man, preferring another man raise his child than lose face and, ultimately, authority over his community. For Gabriel, what grounds his masculine identity is not found in his bloodline, morality, or physicality but in maintaining power and authority.

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Conversely, John lacks any authority or control in his life; yet, as confusion over his budding manhood blossoms, he begins to identify the type of masculinity he wants to exhibit. “John’s character is representative of a greater struggle for personhood that is not concrete but adapts to how greater society conceives of it and uses those perceptions to shape the black male as not a new entity, but one that recreates boundaries” (Kang) of what masculinity can encompass. In Go Tell It, John not only struggles with the type of man he wants to emulate but also has an innate sexual draw toward men. Readers often perceive John as the true protagonist in the novel because of his character’s growth and religious revelation at the end of Go Tell It. Yet, as previously stated, if Go Tell It is to be viewed as a coming-of-age novel, it is illogical to assume that John came to age and reached a functioning grasp on his manhood in twenty-four hours. John’s character was established to be a tool for Baldwin to suggest that the laws of man do not dictate religious deliverance. John’s struggle with sexuality and still going through the trashing floor, an implication of salvation, suggests one does not need acceptance, tolerance, or forgiveness to gain the mercy of God. Radically, John’s scene of salvation suggests that the importance of man's characterization of a redeemable person does not detour equality in the eyes of God, and perhaps John’s relationship and forbidden desire toward Elisha could have pulled him closer to religious deliverance.

 

Sex and sexuality highly impact how Baldwin’s male characters grapple with their masculinity. Giovanni’s Room makes a substantial statement about manhood as David “struggles to achieve a sense of masculine identity with which he can be comfortable and accepted by society” (Auger). David’s repressed sexual identity proves to be the force he continually reckons with in attempting to generate his masculinity. In a conversation between David’s father and Aunt surrounding David’s upbringing, his father states that he wants David to “grow up to be a man. And when I say a man…I don’t mean a Sunday school teacher,” and David’s aunt responds, “A man is not the same thing as a bull” (Baldwin Giovanni’s 15).  His father’s and aunt’s ambivalence and problem with “articulating manhood leave David in a state of ambivalence about his identity (Auger). David’s masculine identity is tied to his national identity, meaning he bases his masculine identity on American standards and, by doing so, creates America as a metaphor for sexuality. Essentially, “Baldwin does not simply use America as a metaphor for a certain type of sexuality but also shows how the history of it as a geographic and colonial space also informs the limits of sexual expression. Much like the continent, David’s body is cartographed by a narrative of conquering and an absence of freedom” (Gibson). David fled America, the land of the free, to free himself from his history.

 

Unfortunately, much like America, David could not resolve his troubled past. If America represents oppression, in theory, Paris would represent liberation. Yet, spending his time with openly gay men in gay spaces, David continues to push his desires away. He not only deceives himself but attempts to deceive others around him. However, Giovanni presses the issue of David’s intentions in the bar, “‘you think,’ he persisted, ‘that my life is shameful because my encounters are. And they are. But you should ask yourself why they are’ ‘Why are they—shameful?’ I asked him. ‘Because there is no affection in them, and no joy. It’s like putting an electric plug in a dead socket. Touch but no contact’” (Baldwin Giovanni’s 56). For David, the act is shameful; Giovanni argues it is because the acts lack love and connection. Despite their eventual relationship, David is never able to move beyond his American conditioning in shame for his homosexual desire. He resents Giovanni for his Eurocentric conception of sex and open sexual practices. The American issue, and by extension, David’s struggle, is “the inability to acknowledge an inherent tension within, to accept the truth pervasive in one’s history and unavoidable in one’s present” (Gibson). If America represents subjection, Paris should represent open rebellion. David feels comfortable moving as freely as he chooses with Giovanni in Paris as long he does not have to defend or flesh out his sexuality with anyone, including himself. Baldwin made a space for the sexually torn protagonist to examine his history. There is a freedom interwoven into the consciousness in Paris that grants David a space vastly different from his American home to reconcile said history, yet he never does. Once his fiancé, Hella, goes on travels, his newfound liberation quickly becomes a space of imprisonment within his mind.

 

David is arguably one of Baldwin’s most conflicted characters regarding the formation of his masculinity. David wants to see himself in a way that does not exactly reflect who he is, a characteristic wildly correlated with the American nation. David reflects, “In the beginning, because the motives which led me to Giovanni’s room were so mixed, had so little to do with hopes and desires…I invented myself a kind of pleasure in playing the housewife after Giovanni had gone to work…But I am not a housewife—men can never be housewives” (Baldwin Giovanni’s 88). David explicitly resents Giovanni for the roles they have fallen into but implicitly is resentful of himself for allowing himself to loosen the grips on his perceived American manhood and taking “pleasure” in his relaxed gendered position. David’s frustration, as elusive as it may be, is connected to reinforced American sexual ethos. Despite his half-hearted efforts, David “cannot help but embody the breakdown of his American manhood” (Gibson). Along with Jesse and Gabriel, David suffers to maintain a sense of his masculinity; however, unlike Jesse and Gabriel, David’s masculinity is not tied to control, power, or dominance.

 

David’s embodiment of masculinity is, to him, dictated by who his sexual partners are. Baldwin shattered the dominant patriarchal depiction of manhood with David’s character as David is in opposition of the acceptable Self-Made man trope Kimmel outlines. David lives a meager life with no ambition to make himself anything. He lives off the money his father sends him from America. Were he to be judged off the American standards of what a man should be, David would be viewed as a bum. He is unconcerned about social pressures or expectations until it comes to his sexuality. In ending their relationship, David tells Giovanni, “You want to go to work and be the big laborer and bring home the money, and you want me to stay here and wash dishes and cook the food and clean the miserable closet of a room and kiss you when you come through that door and lie with you at night and be your little girl” (Baldwin Giovanni’s 142). This is not reflective of what Giovanni wants from him. David’s statement is reflective of who he is, regardless of the partner he is with. When he is with Hella, he lives an adjacent life to what he lived with Giovanni; however, being with a man and not being “the man” emasculates him. Hella's inherent femininity grants David presumed manliness. David cannot reconcile his sexual desires with his culturally rooted conception of manhood.

 

If Beale Street Could Talk demonstrates the kaleidoscope of masculinity Baldwin sought to extrapolate in his works. This novel is unique as Baldwin writes it from the feminine perspective. Tish’s femininity enables an affectionate and intimate depiction of masculinity, specifically in analyzing Fonny’s masculinity. Baldwin’s depiction of the fathers and Fonny through Tish demonstrates an evolving social acceptance and embrace of shifting masculinity. These men are deeply flawed; they are not images of idealistic masculinity; however, at their core, all three of them discussed here are grounded by an ideal closest to Baldwin’s core—love.

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In Beale Street, Baldwin constructs three men who represent differing masculine identities. Each man’s masculinity is constructed and informed uniquely. Frank Hunt, Fonny’s father, is a failed businessman and heavy-drinking, violent misogynist with loose morals. In Beale Street, Baldwin builds his male character's sense of masculinity to be synonymous with respect.  When they learn of Tish and Fonny’s pregnancy, Mrs. Hunt begins berating Tish. Frank reacts by laughing and walking over to her “and, with the back of his hand, knocked her down. Yes. She was on the floor, her hat way on the back of her head and her dress above her knees, and Frank stood over her” (Baldwin If Beale Street 68). Baldwin encapsulates Frank’s layered abuse toward his wife in just a few brief sentences:            

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“Where you want the Lord to enter you, you dirty, dumb black bitch? you bitch. You bitch. You bitch. And he’d slap her, hard, loud. And she’d say, Oh, Lord, help me to bear my burden. And he’d say, Here it is, baby, you going to bear it all right, I know it. You got a friend in Jesus, and I’m going to tell you when he comes.” (Baldwin If Beale Street 17)

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In this passage, Frank physically, verbally, and is sexually aggressive with his wife. During sex Frank mocks his wife’s religion and inserts himself in a Godlike position to dominate her. His abusive nature extends to his daughters. He contentiously tells his daughters, “if you was any type of women you’d be peddling pussy on the block to get your brother out of jail instead of giving it away for free” (Baldwin If Beale Street 190). How Frank interacts with his wife and daughters demonstrates Frank’s misogynistic ideologies, suggesting women can only be useful through their bodies.

 

Control informs Frank’s masculinity, however, in a vastly different way from Gabriel’s sense of control, as Frank has little to no control or authority over anyone in any space. When Fonny gets falsely accused of rape and arrested, Frank's lack of ability to do anything of consequence to rescue his son becomes a detriment to his masculine influence in the world. Frank tells Joseph, “Now he’s in jail and it ain't even his fault and I don’t even know how I’m going to get him out. I’m sure one hell of a man” (Baldwin If Beale Street 126). Frank and Joseph begin stealing from their company to raise money to help with Fonny’s defense. Eventually, Frank gets caught. Frank lacks support from his wife and daughters, and understanding he will be irrefutably helpless to Fonny if he is also in prison, he decides to kill himself. While Gabriel's masculinity is fed through control and his authoritative voice in his family, Frank’s masculinity resides in being a man in control of himself. Through committing suicide, Frank maintains control over himself.

 

Despite their similar environment, community influences, friendship, and, through a mutual grandchild, kinship, Joseph’s and Frank’s conception of masculinity is not duplicated. Joseph is the leader of his family; he believes in unity and support, is unjudgmental, respects his wife, is tender with his daughters, and will put himself on the line to protect his family. When his daughter reveals that she is young, unwed, and pregnant, Joseph responds, “‘do you want this baby Tish…don’t you go around thinking you a bad girl, or any foolishness like that,’ Daddy said ‘I just asked you that because you so young, and—…I hope it’s a boy” (Baldwin If Beale Street46). Joseph is one of the father characters Baldwin writes whose ideologies match his actions, meaning that when he expresses family togetherness and unity, he accepts that he, the man and head of his family, cannot do everything. He gives due credit to his wife and daughters for their contribution and important roles in the family. When urging Tish to quit her job, Joseph tells her, “‘listen, little girl. We got to take care of each other in this world, right? Now: there are somethings I can do that you can’t do. That’s all…and things you can do that I can’t do, just like have that baby for you. I would if I could. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you’” (Baldwin If Beale Street 160). Joseph’s masculinity is unthreatened by external influences. His wife and daughters respect and trust him because he has demonstrated his ability to lead his family.

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Joseph’s ability to maintain his family informs his masculinity. Joseph prioritizes the care and solidarity of his family unit. Fonny is a part of Joseph’s family now, and he would “gladly go to jail, blow away a pig, or blow up a city to save [his] progeny” (Baldwin If Beale Street 128). Joseph also understands that “the criminalization of African American men stands in the way of successful African American fatherhood” (Suk), meaning his concern is not about social presentation. Rather, if anything happens to Fonny, his “little girl’s baby won’t have no father” (Baldwin If Beale Street 45). Joseph has loose morals when it comes to the perseverance of his family. He is gentle with his family yet firm without cruelty. Tish being raised by a man like Joseph, a man with an understanding of his masculine presence, allows her to take Fonny as is and never question his manhood.

 

Fonny is the most progressive male character and simultaneously the most obscure, as Baldwin reveals most of his character through flashbacks. As a man, he has little obligation to his community, granting him the ability to live a free and lax lifestyle. Tish’s family accepted him as  family on the premise that Tish loved him. Fonny’s masculinity is assumed. What I mean by this is he does not have to extend himself to define his masculinity; he does not have to prove or assert his manhood on anyone to be seen as a man. After his arrest, Tish remarks, “I’m not ashamed of Fonny. If anything, I’m proud. He’s a man. You can tell by the way he’s taken all this shit that he’s a man” (Baldwin If Beale Street 7). As the reader's perspective is solely from the point of view of Tish, we can see the cracks in Fonny’s masculinity are from outside factors; however, those cracks belong to him; they do not detour adoration or respect from his community. During the altercation in the market, Tish physically protected Fonny from a moment that was heading in the direction of police brutality. Baldwin’s decision to have Tish narrate allows him to place Fonny in vulnerable situations without making him appear weak because she does, nor does his vulnerable state not revoke his masculine presence (Harris). Tish reflects, “I was sure that cop wanted to kill Fonny, but he could not kill Fonny if I could keep my body in between” (Baldwin If Beale Street 137). For Fonny, it was not Tish’s protection tore at his masculinity but his inability to protect himself in such a situation. 

 

Fonny’s masculinity reflects Joseph’s, yet we can see fundamental differences and changes happening from generation to generation. Joseph was unashamed to reveal that he relies on his wife and daughters to manage the problems he could not. Fonny sets an expectation that he and Tish will be partners, telling her, “I ain’t offering you much. I ain’t got no money and work odd jobs—just for bread, because I ain’t about to for none of their jive-ass okey-doke—and that means that you going to have to work, too” (Baldwin If Beale St 77). Fonny is an artist, not a self-made man. Fonny’s partnership with Tish does not threaten his sense of masculinity. Through their relationship, Baldwin constructs an image of men who believe women deserve respect and equality and understand unity, which strengthens the influence of the individual and empowers the community.

 

Baldwin’s fictional work moves away from the convention of creating idealistic characters as representations of social tropes. Rather, he creates male characters with complex emotions, layered ethics, and wavering morality. Baldwin writes his male characters' American masculinity with immensely rich nuances the reader is never sure if they should condone, empathize, or pity these characters. Baldwin sculpted his masculinity uniquely, expressing through the literature the depths of evil demonstrated by his predecessors and the viability of men who are strong enough to be malleable to adjust to evolving community needs.  In rejecting the blueprint of masculinity, Baldwin addresses the formulaic American idea of masculinity by providing a crafted, nuanced intersection of race, power, and manhood.