Fonny's Wife Analysis

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In the book James Baldwin shows how various types of love show themselves, specifically through Fonny and Tish’s relationship as well as through FOnny;s parents relationship. Through these examples we are able to get a look at Baldwin’s possible ideas of love, sex, and gender.

Baldwin writes"He took my face in his hands, and held it, and he kissed me.'Now, don't besmeared,' he whispered. 'Don’t be scared. Just remember that I wouldn’t hurt you for nothing in this world. You just going to have to get used to me. And we got all the time in the world'…I held on to him, in an agony; there was nothing else in the world to hold on to” in this passage we receive an intimate look and example of Fonny and Tish’s love (Baldwin 78). In this scene we receive an intimate look at the relationship between Tish and Fonny. The way we see Fonny care for Tish both physically and emotionally in this scene and throughout the book really forges the quality of relationship that they have. He is not overbearing or seeking power over her, instead, he sees the equal in her, and as he cares incredibly deeply for her as we see through the novel. He wants to make sure that she is always at ease and can feel that he is there for her. As we see the story progress through Tish’s perspective, we can see the recognition of his love and devotion to her acknowledged. An interesting thing that we see is the equality …show more content…

In their scene there are less aspects of raw passion and care than there is more of a rough and primal instinct about it. While Tish and Fonny’s love and relation seems fairly equidistant, we don't get that feel as much between Mr. and Mrs. Hunt. We see Mr. Hunts overbearing masculinity overpowering at a lot of points in the book Mrs. Hunts vulnerable and less powerful femininity and womanhood that she portrays. Their relationship at points can be interpreted as