In James Baldwin's novel Another Country, almost every central character experiences anxiety, confusion, or conflicts when it comes to the intertwining of their bodies and identities. , and desires. It could be argued, however, that the character of Eric, a homosexual expatriate who returns to New York midway through the novel to pursue an acting career, experiences no such crises, even when he engages in an affair with the heterosexual and married Cass. In fact, Eric's affair with Cass in no way confuses his homosexuality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay When we first meet Eric, he is living in France with his lover of just over two years, Yves. Baldwin presents Eric and Yves as having a healthy, loving, and mutually respectful relationship, free of the racial, gendered, and classed subtext that is present in the relationships of every other character in the book. During the first chapter in which Eric is introduced, the couple is presented by Baldwin as being happy with each other: "[Eric] and Yves had been together for over two years, and since they met, his house was with Yves. More precisely and literally, it was Yves who had come to live with him, but each was, for the other, the home that each despaired of finding. »[1]This passage shows the level of happiness and wholeness that arises from the relationship between Eric and Yves through a sense of "home" achieved, while the last sentence suggests that this relationship, and the true happiness that comes from this and his feeling of "home", is the end result of a long process of searching for a person that everyone was capable of loving. This therefore suggests that Eric, before leaving New York and settling in France where he met Yves, faced internalized crises regarding his identity and his desires which were resolved by the consummation of a relationship with another man. It is the fact that after deciding to return to New York, “[he] did not want to be separated from Yves” [Baldwin, pp. 158] which shows that Eric, through his relationship with Yves, came to accept and be happy with his homosexuality. Eric's acceptance and comfort in his homosexuality is seen throughout the rest of the novel, as is his sense of loyalty to Yves and their relationship. However, his identity as a homosexual becomes strange when he begins an affair with Cass, a friend before he left New York. Baldwin presents this affair as coming from a mutual agreement between Eric and Cass: “'You make me feel very strange,' [Eric] said. 'You make me feel things I never thought I'd feel again.'' What do I make you feel? [Cass] asked. “You do the same for me. » She felt that he was taking the initiative for her. [Baldwin, pp. 242] By being a homosexual willing to engage in a sexual relationship with a woman, Eric presents a complex intertwining between the concepts of body, identity and desire, or rather lack of desire. The bond between Eric and Cass suggests that bodies, identity, and desire are not intrinsically linked or intertwined. Baldwin suggests that just because Eric identifies as homosexual and is part of a romantic homosexual relationship does not mean that he is prohibited from desiring women. In a similar example in her book Queer Theory: An Introduction, Annamarie Jagose presents the argument that men who are married to women and identify as heterosexual but still desire sex with other men are not necessarily homosexuals or closeted homosexuals.[2] ThereEric's presentation of the affair also recalls Carl Wittman's assertion in "A Gay Manifesto" that a homosexual identity is not based solely on sexual desire, with whom one has sex, but rather on a social identification, a willingness to label oneself as homosexual, a "capacity to love someone of the same sex" regardless of who else one may desire.[3] The sex of the sexual partner, Baldwin suggests, like Jagose and Wittman, does not define one's sexuality; sex and sexuality are two concepts that do not correspond. Desire, in Eric's case, is presented as blind and ambivalent towards identities and bodies, allowing an individual who identifies as a gay man to desire another individual with a woman's body in an act of sexual fluidity. While Eric is seen as capable of embracing a sexual fluidity distinct from his identity as a gay man, Cass, on the other hand, experiences certain problems through his intertwining of bodies, identity, and desire. Vivaldo, a mutual friend of Eric and Cass, notes that about the affair "it was not Eric who surprised him, but Cass". [Baldwin, pp. 271] This suggests that Cass is supposed to be more traditional, wiser, or cautious than Eric. Perhaps, unlike Eric, the issue is not the desired body and the impact that desire has on one's identity, but rather the existence of desire itself. As Vivaldo’s girlfriend notes: “Cass is a grown woman with two children. And these children? … These kids are going to hate her.” [Baldwin, pp. 272] The assumption is that there are double standards when it comes to promiscuity. There is no problem when Eric, a gay man, engages in a fluid sexual affair despite having a committed relationship, but Cass is condemned by her friends because she is a married mother who cheats on her husband, despite having an affair. who respects their sexual identity. This may be related to what Wittman states in "A Gay Manifesto" that "sex for [women] has meant oppression, while for [homosexuals] it has been a symbol of our freedom ". [Wittman, pp.5] Sex, the act of combining body and desire, is inherently gendered and is therefore very different for men and women, even if one were to ignore sexuality. Eric's affair does not call into question his homosexuality, but rather consolidates it, if we follow Wittman's argument, by being a symbol of his sexual freedom due to his ability to ignore naturalized gender roles. For Cass, however, this symbolizes an unacceptable difference from fixed gender roles and a continuation of sexual oppression, because, as Wittman says, "a major problem [for homosexuals] is our own male chauvinism"; Eric continues sexual exploitation of Cass due to their gender differences. [Wittman, pp.5] For Cass, who seeks to escape her stifling and mundane marriage, the affair with Eric is doomed due to the fact that women, due to the fixed nature of gender roles, are not allowed to act according to their desires. When it comes to the way bodies, identities, and desires are intertwined in Another Country, the results of this intertwining are heavily determined by gender. For Eric, there is no discernible intertwining of these three categories due to his acceptance of sexual fluidity; he is able to see the distinction between the three and how all three can remain separate. However, it is only thanks to his status as a homosexual male, to his life outside of gender roles, that he is able to engage in sexual fluidity without consequences on his identity, on the bodies that he he desires; it is because he is homosexual that the affair with Cass does not confuse his homosexuality. For Cass, however, for whom sexual fluidity. 4