Another Country

“Without Vivaldo, there was a difference in the eyes which watched them.”

Without Vivaldo present, Rufus is even more keenly aware of his race. He knows that he is being watched and that, as a Black man, the people watching him are harboring negative thoughts. He feels the difference between the times when he is with Vivaldo, when he is with Leona, and when he is alone. Furthermore, the feeling of being watched by the primarily white society makes him resent Leona and Vivaldo as well as society at large. Rufus is unable to escape the feeling that he is constantly being watched and judged to the extent that he discerns different kinds of surveillance depending on his company.

“I really don’t want to hear all that shit, Rufus.”

Rufus provides a frank and honest assessment of his lived experiences of racism as a Black man, but this assessment is rejected by Vivaldo. Even in a practical sense, Rufus knows that he will suffer if he takes an injured white man to a hospital, but Vivaldo dismisses his fears as a minor inconvenience. Racism is a life and death matter to Rufus, who understands the pain and suffering he has endured because of his race while Vivaldo only engages with the abstract idea of racism and, because he does not believe himself to be racist, dismisses Rufus’s concerns that other people might not feel the same way.

“It’s not possible to forget anybody you’ve destroyed.”

Rufus is fraught with guilt for his many failings. This guilt affects him so much because he is not able to forget or ignore the pain he has caused in other people. Rufus understands suffering because he has been brutalized and discriminated against for his entire life; the brutalization and discrimination he inflicts on others troubles him so much because he empathizes with the suffering he has caused them. Rufus understands the pain he causes but cannot stop himself from causing it. Instead, he obsesses over his guilt and continues along his path of self-destruction.

“He wondered where such a violent emptiness might drive an entire city.”

Vivaldo speculates about the alienating effect of discrimination without understanding that many people have already been affected by the issue. To Vivaldo, the idea of “violent emptiness” (44) is a shocking revelation. To people like Rufus, it is a fact of life. Vivaldo claims to understand racism and society, but he struggles to comprehend the reality of existence for nonwhite people. He treats his fleeting moment of empathy as an important revelation rather than learning from his friends who have experienced the issue their entire lives.

“He was tired of the troubles of real people.”

Vivaldo struggles to deal with the nuances and complexities of real people, preferring to focus on the fictional characters in his unfinished novel. Because Vivaldo distances himself from people’s nuances, however, he is not satisfied by the fictional characters he creates. Vivaldo is caught in a position where he does not want to deal with “the troubles of real people” (51), but this hesitancy inhibits his ability to write satisfying and real characters.

“He was black and the water was black.”

In the moment of his death, Rufus cannot distinguish his Blackness from a sense of punishment. He kills himself by jumping into the water but, as he stares down into the water, all he notes is its black color. Rufus kills himself by leaping into the vast blackness, finally resolving the pain that he has endured during his life. In the end, he empathizes only with the deadly water as it is the only thing in the world that can echo his pain and his Blackness. Rufus gives himself up to the black water, releasing himself from his pain by joining his Blackness with the blackness of the water.

“I don’t know. I just wanted a girl. I guess, someone to share those long winter evenings.”

Vivaldo wants company, and he does not want to endure his sense of loneliness. However, his desires are vague and self-centered. He wants someone who resolves his issues rather than someone who appeals to him in their own right. In essence, Vivaldo wants another warm body to be near him and to validate his self-belief rather than someone who can offer him something tangible. Until Vivaldo understands what he actually wants, he will continue to feel lonely, even when he is with someone.

“He was reduced to his beauty and his elegance – as bones, after a long illness, come forward through the flesh.”

Without Rufus, Vivaldo lacks something substantive in his life. Cass assesses Vivaldo, noting that sorrow looks good on him because it stripped away all the excess of his personality and shortcomings, much like a long illness would strip away the excess of a body, leaving the underlying structure of the skeleton visible. Rufus provided a counterbalance in Vivaldo’s life, and without Rufus Vivaldo is forced to confront the feelings of emptiness and alienation that are evident to others. From Cass’s point of view, part of Vivaldo died with Rufus, so Vivaldo is a shell of his former self who must learn how to endure.

“They were colored but they were the same, really the same.”

Sitting in the church for Rufus’s funeral, Vivaldo wants to feel a unity with the African American people in attendance. He believes that a solidarity exists between them because of their material status: they are all poor, he suggests, so this makes them “really the same” (77). However, Vivaldo’s assessment of social class lacks any form of racial solidarity. He is unable to form a nuanced view of oppression and discrimination because he reduces everyone’s status to their material conditions. Vivaldo desperately seeks solidarity with the Black people at the funeral because he wants to believe he understands their suffering while simultaneously illustrating why his worldview is so limited.

“Uptown, his alienation had been made visible and, therefore, almost bearable.”

Vivaldo once had a habit of visiting African American neighborhoods to sleep with Black prostitutes. He congratulated himself quietly for doing so, believing that this behavior showed that he was not racist. To women like Ida, however, this behavior is demonstrative of a wider white consciousness, which frames African American women as cheap, disposable, and the permissible objects of white aggression. Vivaldo visited these women because he could do so and because doing so had no impact on his life in white society. They were distant and separated from his community, meaning that he felt no ramifications or shame for doing what he did. Vivaldo wants to believe he can use his lust as a form of racial solidarity, but he only succeeds in propagating existing racial dynamics because he is unwilling to engage with these women on a social or intellectual level. He projects beliefs on to them, rather than listening to what they have to say. As a result, he may alleviate his alienation for a little while, but he resolves nothing on a social level.

“They seemed to watch him with a kind of despairing, beseeching reproach.”

The characters in Vivaldo’s novel stare at him the same way he stares at other people. The novel is a mirror, cutting him off from the world. He is unable to realize that until he engages with those around him and begins to understand the humanity of their lives the character in his novel will continue to elude him. He can only create ghostly imitations of people because he refuses to understand real people’s experiences.

“She was in his bed but she was far from him; she was with him and yet she was not with him.”

Many of the characters in the novel feel alienated from society. They recognize the emotional distance between themselves and those around them. This emotional distance is not resolved by physical proximity. Vivaldo lays next to Ida, but he still struggles to understand her life and her experiences. Characters can be physically near one another, lying in bed so close that they are almost touching, yet still feel as though they are nowhere near one another.

“She had taken off all her make-up, so that she had scarcely any eyebrows, and her unpainted lips were softer now, and defenseless.”

Vivaldo watches Ida as she sleeps. In this moment, her combative attitude to the world vanishes. The makeup she normally uses to hide her face from the world is gone, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. Vivaldo is able to see the real Ida in a physical sense, but he still does not know her in an emotional sense. She may seem defenseless to him, but he still does not understand the reason why she needs the defenses nor why she wields them so forcibly. The more Vivaldo begins to understand Ida, the more he realizes he still needs to learn.

“Rufus had made him suffer, but Rufus had dared to know him.”

Rufus does not treat his friends or his loved ones well. He is abusive, angry, and violent, even with those who are closest to him. Vivaldo appreciates the intensity of Rufus’s friendship even though Vivaldo frequently demonstrates that he does not understand the rage and sense of injustice that fueled Rufus’s behavior. However, Rufus respected Vivaldo enough to try and show him reality and this attempt makes him one of Vivaldo’s most important friends. Vivaldo was willing to endure the intensity and the violence of Rufus’s friendship because there was a sincere bond between the two men.

“This is what happens if you have kids, this is what happens if you get what you want.”

Richard complains about the state of his life because, while he ostensibly has everything he wants, he is not happy. Richard has always believed what he wants is easy to describe: a wife, children, and a career in writing. Once he has all of those things, however, he is still not happy. Richard is not happy because he does not completely understand what he wants. He does not want a wife, children, or a specific career; he wants to be respected, so his low opinion of his own novel grates constantly at him and undermines the happiness he has achieved. He feels embarrassed by his own career and does not believe his wife respects him. As such, the things Richard has always believed would make him happy ultimately cause him to feel pain and sadness. Richard is a victim of misunderstanding his own desires.

“Men have to think about so many things. Women only have to think about men.”

Vivaldo happily shows the limits of his own intelligence, framing his misunderstanding of the world as informed opinion. As he sits with a young girl he has met for the first time, he tells her that women’s lives revolve around men. Even though Vivaldo is an aspiring novelist, he does not believe that women have any agency of their own. Vivaldo may have been a young man when he made the comment, but his behavior in later life and his struggles to write compelling characters can be traced back to his limited and prejudiced world view.

“I’m not at all interested in the education of your family, Vivaldo.”

Ida voices her frustration that white people like Vivaldo constantly look to her to guide them through the nuances of racism. For Vivaldo, Ida seems the natural choice to introduce his family to more progressive racial ideas. For Ida, this is the latest in a long succession of white people searching for an African American to explain racism to them or their family. What is an isolated incident for Vivaldo is a tiresome part of existence for Ida. Once again, Vivaldo demonstrates his lack of understanding of how racism affects the women he supposedly loves.

“Policemen were neither friends nor enemies; they were part of the landscape, present for the purpose of upholding law and order; and if a policeman—for she had never thought of them as very bright—seemed to forget his place, it was easy enough to make him remember.”

Cass experiences one of the revelations that continues to elude Vivaldo. She realizes how the police are viewed differently by her and Ida due to their race as well as how the police would view a gay man compared to a straight person. Eric is gay and Ida is African American, meaning they do not enjoy the same protections from the police. Likewise, they do not enjoy the privilege of being able to view the police as objective, inconsequential bodies who exist “for the purpose of upholding law and order” (184). Cass is heterosexual and white, meaning that society is shaped in her image. She is also a woman, so she endures society’s misogyny, but she has never had any cause to view the police as anything other than a public service. Now, she understands that this view is only held by the people who benefit most from the society whose rules the police exist to enforce.

“For he knew that she often sang them in order to flaunt before him the privacies which he could never hope to penetrate and to convey accusations which he could never hope to decipher, much less deny.”

Ida’s lyrics serve as a reminder to Vivaldo about how little he understands about Ida and her culture. Even when the lyrics are bluntly describing a thought or a feeling, there is a depth and a profundity to them that eludes Vivaldo’s understanding. The lyrics contain references to a culture and emotions he does not understand, meaning that he is frustrated when she sings. His frustration reveals his self-centered personality, as he is shocked that there is a part of the world to which he is denied access. As a white man, he is accustomed to living in a world built in his image. Ida’s songs needle at this unspoken feeling, showing him that there are experiences and existences he can never truly know.

“It’s rough, but it’s not as rough as it might be.”

Ida’s excuse for not wanting to move to a new house can be applied to the characters’ relationships as well. Ida does not want to move because their current apartment is adequate, if not perfect. She knows its familiar limitations and is afraid of losing what she has in pursuit of what she could have. As such, she would prefer to remain in the current acceptable situation rather than risk seeking something more fulfilling and possibly losing out. In the same way, she stays with Vivaldo even though she knows their relationship is not perfect. The marriage between Cass and Richard has operated along similar lines in the past. The characters would rather be in an acceptable but not perfect relationship rather than attempting to find something better.

“But, oh, Lord, when he died, I thought that maybe I could have saved him if I’d just reached out that quarter of an inch between us on that bed, and held him.”

Vivaldo still cannot discern the difference between physical and emotional distance. He believes that merely reaching out and touching Rufus might have been enough to save him, conflating physical contact with actually being close to someone. He does not understand that physical touch or small gestures would be empty without their emotional ramifications. Rufus needed emotional help and support to resolve the anger and violence festering inside him. Merely touching Rufus would not have resolved these issues. Instead, it could have been the indication that Vivaldo was trying to help Rufus. For Vivaldo, however, all he has to offer is the empty gesture.

“Her face felt twice its size; when she took her hands away, they were covered with blood.”

Richard slaps Cass and draws blood. His violent outburst is an echo of the time Paul and Michael were beaten up by a group of African American boys. Richard and the boys who attacked Paul and Michael are angry and frustrated but lack the ability to define the nature of their emotion. They lash out in violent ways to satisfy a fundamental desire for vengeance or retribution rather than addressing the systemic and fundamental issues that have caused their situation. The boys who attacked Paul and Michael are angry about systemic racism, so they lash out at two youngster who are not responsible for this issue. Likewise, Richard is suffering from wounded pride and feelings of professional inadequacy, so he lashes out at Cass, believing that she cheated on him because she does not respect him as a writer. Like the young boys, Richard lashes out violently against someone who represents the problem rather than the problem itself.

“This isn’t a country at all, it’s a collection of football players and Eagle Scouts. Cowards. We think we’re happy. We’re not. We’re doomed.”

Cass gives voice to a pessimistic feeling that runs through the novel. She identifies the fundamental problem of alienation that all of the characters feel to some degree. Rather than a cohesive society in which everyone is equally invested, the characters feel they exist in isolated bubbles. They may be close to one or two people, but they are separated from the society at large. To Cass, there is no country. Instead, it is a collection of individuals who delude themselves into thinking they are the same.