Shame and the Confessional Form in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This study explores the significance of shame in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin’s second novel which was published in 1956, is narrated from the perspective of David, a white American living in France. Waiting for the execution of his former lover, Giovanni, David begins his story in a first-person narration that displays a confessional, retrospective mode. This study delves into the novel’s own language and imagery that are associated with David’s shame, and particularly the word “grotesque.” Shame has been an important keyword in queer theory in that the affect of shame discloses the structures of heteronormativity but also makes it possible for non-normative subjectivities to disidentify themselves from dominant structures of race, gender and sexuality. First, I read David’s shame through the grotesque in adjunction to Julia Kristeva’s abject which represents the indivisibility of the subject and the phobic object. Then, I look into the confessional form of the novel in order to think about the political and aesthetic significance of the novel. I argue that the confessional form not only enables David to retrospectively investigate his sources of shame, the heteronormative “American ideal of manhood” that forecloses bodily desire, but also helps him confront his shame and confess his love for Giovanni in order to break away from the constricting ideologies of manhood, heteronormativity, and desire.
Abstract
This study explores the significance of shame in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin’s second novel which was published in 1956, is narrated from the perspective of David, a white American living in France. Waiting for the execution of his former lover, Giovanni, David begins his story in a first-person narration that displays a confessional, retrospective mode. This study delves into the novel’s own language and imagery that are associated with David’s shame, and particularly the word “grotesque.” Shame has been an important keyword in queer theory in that the affect of shame discloses the structures of heteronormativity but also makes it possible for non-normative subjectivities to disidentify themselves from dominant structures of race, gender and sexuality. First, I read David’s shame through the grotesque in adjunction to Julia Kristeva’s abject which represents the indivisibility of the subject and the phobic object. Then, I look into the confessional form of the novel in order to think about the political and aesthetic significance of the novel. I argue that the confessional form not only enables David to retrospectively investigate his sources of shame, the heteronormative “American ideal of manhood” that forecloses bodily desire, but also helps him confront his shame and confess his love for Giovanni in order to break away from the constricting ideologies of manhood, heteronormativity, and desire.
참고문헌 (30)
- Abur-Rahman, Aliyyah I., "‘Simply a Menaced Boy’: Analogizing Color, Undoing Dominance in James Baldwin’s ‘Giovanni’s Room’", American Review, 41(3), pp.477~486 (2007)[DOI]
- Armengol, Josep M., "In the Dark Room : Homosexuality and", as Blackness in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, 2012, pp.37(3), 671~693
- Axthelm, Pete, "The Modern Confessional Novel" (1967), Yale UP
- Baldwin, James, "Collected Essays" (1998), Library of America
- Baldwin, James, "Giovanni’s Room" (2001), Penguin
- Bloom, James D., "Queering, Gazing and Containment in Giovanni’s Room", European Journal of American Culture, 34(4), pp.25~46 (2015)
- Chauncey, George, "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940" (1994), Basic
- Corber, Robert J., "Homosexuality in Cold War America: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity" (1997), Duke UP
- Edwards, Justin, "Grotesque" (2013), Routledge
- Friedan, Betty, "The Feminine Mystique" (2001), Norton
- Frontain, Raymond-Jean, "James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and the Biblical Myth of David", CEA Critic, 57(2), pp.41~58 (1995)
- Halberstam, Judith, "Shame and White Gay Masculinity", Social Text, 84-85(3-4), pp.219~233 (2005)
- Henderson, Mae G., "Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology", pp.298~321 (2005), Duke UP
- Kimmel, Michael S., "Feminism and Masculinities", pp.182~199 (2004), Oxford UP
- Kristeva, Julia, "Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection" (1982), Columbia UP
- Lauro, Sarah Juliet, "Zombie Theory: A Reader" (2017), U of Minnesota P
- Mitchell, Kaye, "Writing Shame : Contemporary Literature, Gender and Negative Affect" (2020), Edinburgh UP
- Palmer, Paulina, "The Queer Uncanny: New Perspectives on the Gothic" (2012), U of Wales P
- Pearl, Monica B., "Chagrin d’amour: Intimacy, Shame, and the Closet in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room", James Baldwin Review, 6, pp.64~84 (2020)
- Reid-Pharr, Robert F., "African American Literary Theory, A Reader", pp.602~622 (2000), New York UP
- Rich, Adrienne, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience", Journal of Women’s History, 15(3), pp.11~48 (2003)
- Ricoeur, Paul, "Time and Narrative, Volume 1" (1984), U of Chicago P
- Scott, Darieck, "Extravagant Abjection: Blackness, Power, and Sexuality in the African American Literary Imagination" (2010), New York UP
- Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, "Queer Performativity: Henry James’s The Art of the Novel", GLQ, 1, pp.1~16 (1993)
- Stockton, Kathryn Bond, "Beautiful Bottom, Beautiful Shame: Where “Black” Meets “Queer”" (2006), Duke UP
- Stryker, Susan, "Transgender History" (2008), Seal
- Tenenbaum, David, "Issues of Shame and Guilt in the Modern Novel : Conrad, Ford, Greene, Kafka, Camus, Wilde, Proust, and Mann" (2009), Mellen
- Warner, Michael, "Publics and Counterpublics" (2005), Zone
- Warner, Michael, "The Trouble with Normal : Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life" (2000), Harvard UP
- Wesling, Meg, "Sexuality and Statelessness : Queer Migrations and National Identity in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room", Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 55(3), pp.323~336 (2019)