Character and Identity

What is the appeal and use of a charismatic character? Henry James’s attempt to preserve an ideal of vivid character associated with older genres like romance becomes part of James Baldwin’s set of rhetorical tools for demanding recognition of gay and black humanity. James shows the contagion of personality among characters not to reject a Victorian style of defined characterization, but as material for his protagonists’ decisive acts of self-definition. When Baldwin rejects the protest novel for failing to recognize the agency of individuals in resisting the roles society casts them in, it is through a Jamesian ideal of identity constructed out of, but not trapped within, one’s social context. The charismatically individual character provides a template for resisting the influence of social convention.