If Beale Street Could Talk and James Baldwin's “The Man Child” are both texts that demonstrate how characters' isolation can produce overtly violent outcomes. Although the perspective from which Baldwin challenges dominant forces differs between the two texts, the race of the protagonists appears to be the underlying factor in how the characters experience and fight their oppression, if they experience it at all. These different forms of oppression range from gender inequality to hate crimes, but Tish and Fonny's families are subjected to a condition where they are trapped in their isolation and status with no viable escape route. There are numerous similarities between the characters in If Beale Street Could Talk and “The Man Child,” but Baldwin's black characters are not empowered to exist in a space that promotes freedom, free will, or even love; those who face similar oppressive forces experience them differently precisely because the white characters are not subjected to a hellish wasteland. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As Baldwin expresses through both narratives, those who are able to exist comfortably within the confines of American ideology experience a life less constrained by oppressive forces. At the beginning of If Beale Street Could Talk, Tish expresses the constricting nature of the corridors in both prison and church. Tish describes the situation: “I swear New York has to be the ugliest, dirtiest city in the world… If there's a worse place, it has to be so close to hell you can smell people frying. And, if you think about it, it's exactly the smell of New York in summer” (Beale Street, 9). Whether you consider New York or Puerto Rico, Baldwin describes both places as wastelands, literal and metaphorical, that people of color are forced to inhabit. In “The Man Child,” Eric and his family see the space and land they own as representations of opportunity through the patriarchal pursuit of happiness. Although Jaime is, perhaps, ostracized from Eric's family, he is still a white male and therefore has the means and opportunity to gain a stronghold in the American landscape. As Baldwin writes, “Eric rode on his father's shoulders across the wide green fields that belonged to him, into the yard that held the house that would hear the first cries of his children” (“The Man Child,” 74). Land for Eric's relatives is something they have the opportunity to own because their space is neither limiting nor repressive. The land inherited by Eric thus becomes a physical representation of American idealism that generates hope as well as agriculture: both are key values ​​in American philosophy. The contrasting nature of these two texts and the way space is perceived in them demonstrates how Baldwin claims that the differences between black and white families cause black families to experience hell on earth while white families experience power through the property. Despite Baldwin's tendency to write from male perspectives. , does not shy away from exploring the roles of women in his works. In both texts, Baldwin highlights how powerful gender stereotypes force women into such restrictive molds that their value derives solely from their ability to reproduce. Women are merely vessels for new life, as is evident from the stories of Tish and Eric's mothers. In If Beale Street Could Talk the child represents hope, which is something vital and necessary for black lives. In “The Man Child” the dead child was simply a representation of the family unit; asson and heir, Eric is the focus of the narrative. As is typical in American inheritance practices, Eric, the eldest male, will get the land after his father's death. Therefore, Eric's mother's children have the ability to both own and acquire land compared to Tish and Fonny's son, who is born in a hellish wasteland. Characters like Tish fall victim, at times, to internalized sexism, heteronormativity, and racism; Fonny faces similar circumstances. In the city and in the lives of black people there is nothing to be gained beyond the representation of hope despite the treacherous conditions of their existence, at least in Baldwin's narratives. The pressures of gender expression and masculinity exist as options in both texts, but it is Fonny's expression of white hegemonic masculinity that lands him in prison. Both texts assert that there are overwhelmingly gendered policing forces that give in to violence, but if black men fall into such practices their freedom is at risk. Fonny explains the cycle in which oppressive forces do not allow black masculinity to exist: “They put us in a bag of tricks, baby. It's hard, but I just want you to keep in mind that they can make us lose each other by putting me in the shit” (Beale Street, 142). Although Fonny's act of protecting Tish from the Italian thug is justifiable by moral law, it is unacceptable for a black male to protect his partner at the expense of white men's pride or authority. This act causes Fonny to end up in prison, as his target of retaliation is an individual who is allowed to exist within the confines of white American masculinity. Unlike Fonny, Jaime expresses his masculinity by killing Eric and asserting his power over things that should be owned. Jaime retorts when scolded for hurting the dog: “It's my beast. And a man has the right to do what he wants with what is his” (“The Man Child,” 64). Jaime's ability to possess is something that Fonny, like other black characters in Baldwin's work, is unable to experience due to his race. Although both texts have very different protagonists, the characters of Jaime and Daniel can be perceived as contrasting because they have difficulty expressing their masculinity and feeling oppressed within their liminal spaces or, simply, their bodies. Considering the name of both of these characters is vital when attempting to understand their roles as contrasting characters and combatants against American ideological systems, especially as it pertains to masculinity. Baldwin's “Here Be Dragons” explicitly speaks to the violence that occurs in American masculinity. Baldwin writes about the American ideal of sexuality and masculinity that “This ideal created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and soft guys, butch and fagot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it has virtually prohibited – as an unpatriotic act – the American boy from evolving into the complexity of manhood” (“Here Be Dragons,” 678). Sexuality is therefore rooted in a kind of violent dichotomy, as are other factors such as race, gender and masculinity. It is through this same theory that Daniel's story becomes a tragic story of ideological marginalization. Sexual violence, as Baldwin points out in many of his lyrics, is a tool used for the sexual gratification of white men, and Daniel becomes yet another victim of this violence. Daniel explains, "I don't think there's a white man in this country, honey, who can even get his dick hard, without hearing some nigger moan" (Beale Street, 108). The rape Daniel suffers in prison as well as the rape he has.