An Ethical Study Of James Baldwin’s Novels

Literary works, while expressing the ethical theme, inevitably has itsown presentation and aesthetic appeal. In order to clarify the ethicaldilemmas in Baldwin’s works, it is necessary to read Baldwin’s worksalong with his life. James Baldwin was born in a family that lack warmthand father’s love, and such a painful experience left an indelible mark onhis young mind. Therefore, the unremitting pursuit of love has become avery important theme in Baldwin’s literary creation.This study tries to demonstrate Baldwin’s critiques on the traditionalethics that are harmful to human nature because of the father absence,racial discrimination, antagonism between man and woman, and thedichotomy of heterosexual and homosexual through the analysis of GoTell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and Another Country. Thepaper has pointed out that Baldwin affirms the human’s reasonabledesires, and his works present Baldwin’s ethical thought with thehumanistic spirit.“Love” that is based on the nature of human can be considered as the core of Baldwin’s ethical thought, and the explorationof ideal individual personality becomes one of the striking features ofBaldwin’s novels. This paper attempts to explore the development ofhumanistic “love” Baldwin proclaimed by combing Baldwin’s creativenovels. First, the paper, through the analysis of the history of the blackfamily and the depiction of the estrangement and loneliness of thecharacters in his novels, manages to reveal the importance of the familyas the ethical basis for human development, especially the importance inthe child’s cultivation and development. Second, through the analysis ofthe relations between men and women, the study points out that Baldwinportrays the picture of tension, twist and even alienation between sexes.And Baldwin’s interpretation of love illustrates his humanistic ethicalthought on gender fully, that is, the thirst for love, the objection to theman-chauvinism, the hope for the independence of personality, and theideal of egalitarian love. In the concept of marriage, Baldwin’s ethicalthought shows that he advocates and pursues the mutual equality ofmarriage and emphasizes the faithfulness and the integrity of flesh andsoul in the mode of marital life. Simultaneously, in terms of the “love” between homosexuals, the study has illustrated Baldwin’s particularopinion on the same-sex behavior, pointing that Baldwin believeshomosexuality is a natural and normal behavior, which is similar toheterosexuality. And homosexual and heterosexual are one unity ofhuman sexual relations. He considers that “love” between the same sexesmight be a way to solve the race conflicts and rescue those people livinglonely on the margins of society. Finally, the study concludes thatBaldwin goes beyond Wright’s protest novel mode, trying to break thetaboo of African literature when describing homosexuality andreconstructing the topic of race, family, gender, and sex. And in theinheritance and departure from the traditional culture, there are alwayssome kind of deep and strong ethical traces jumping in Baldwin’s works.The research starts from the intensive reading of the text, employsthe biographical and thematic method, and takes the theories of ethics,Freud psychoanalysis, Butler’s gender performativity, and Hegel’sopinions on ethics of love and marriage as the main theoreticalframework, managing to make a relatively complete analysis ofBaldwin’s first three novels from the ethics of father and son, ethics of sexes, ethics of marriage, ethics of same-sex and other ethicalconnotations, to demonstrate the ethical significance behind the text.The purpose of analyzing the context of the Baldwin’s works is toclarify and make up the important part in the development of AfricanAmerican literature. Moreover, the argument of this analysis, on one hand,has strengthened the systematicness and integrity of Baldwin’s research;on the other hand, it has enhanced the social and cultural functions ofliterature research also, which makes us have a more accurateunderstanding of the process of African American Literature growing.