Reforming the black male self: A study of subject formation in selected works by James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines, and August Wilson

James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines, and August Wilson are three contemporary African-American male writers who challenge the discursive position of the black male subject in fiction and drama. These authors reconfigure the black male protagonist and the discursive framework of post-1940s black masculinist writing, reconceptualizing their subjects in terms of language and setting. Specifically, they reconceive their characters' relationship to voice and community: by foregrounding the significance of (re)connecting with a distinctly gendered--male--community and locating one's story within this setting, the authors liberate the black male protagonist from heretofore confining spaces within the black masculinist text. Thus, the community-voice nexus becomes the basis of the re-formed African-American male subject. Taken together, the writings of Baldwin, Gaines and Wilson constitute a new model of black masculinist literary discourse, which contrasts with previous literary constructions of the black masculinity.; The new model of African-American male writing differs from what I deem the old or protest model of black masculinist writing. Richard Wright's Native Son (1940) and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) emblematize the old matrix, for the authors conceive of their protagonist as archetypal victims who inhabit oppressive physical, social, and psychological spaces. This spatial confinement is reflected narratologically as well, as the authors mediate, edit, and even silence their characters' voices within the textual milieu. In addition, the authors' own relationship to language--their chosen forms of discourse--work to suppress the black male voice.; The authors in my new paradigm reconstruct the black male subject, exemplified by a narrative process in which the authors negate their characters' de-formation in order to stimulate their re-formation. By recentering the function of voice and setting, the authors foreground the curative power in locating one's common (hi)story within a community of black men. Theorizing on the significance of the storytelling act in terms of African-American oral traditions, I illustrate how protagonists and authors extricate themselves from confining thematic and formal spaces.