Another Country

Vivaldo is a man with aspirations to be a writer, though he publishes nothing over the course of the novel. Vivaldo does not just want to be any writer, he wants to be a respected writer who has something to say about the state of the world. As such, he cannot help but look down on Richard‘s commercial writing as being flippant and lacking in substance. However, Richard‘s commercial writing is successful enough to make Vivaldo envious. His envy illustrates an innate tension in Vivaldo‘s character: he wants to be a successful, respected writer, but he lacks the ability or the insight to become one. As a result, he disparages the work of anyone who does succeed as a way to maintain his own ego. He views Richard’s work as insubstantial and commercial because he does not want to reflect on his own flaws or failures as a writer. Vivaldo struggles to succeed but cannot figure out why his fictional characters are not engaging. Vivaldo’s struggles as a writer speak to his struggles as a person: he lacks empathy. Because Vivaldo cannot empathize with the world he inhabits or the people around him, his characters feel flat and uninteresting. For all his claims that he wants to change the world with his writing, Vivaldo’s inability to understand the world means that he will never succeed as the writer he wants to become.

Vivaldo’s inability to empathize with people is shown through his relationships. His relationship with Rufus sets the tone for the novel; Vivaldo values Rufus as a friend and insists that they are close, but he cannot begin to comprehend Rufus’s pain, and he dismisses Rufus’s anxieties about racism as trivial. When Rufus comes to Vivaldo on the night of his suicide, Vivaldo responds by taking Rufus to a bar and then ignores him while chasing after a doomed relationship with a woman. He cannot recognize Rufus’s profound and obvious pain, even as his friend is silently calling out for help. Later, Vivaldo has a relationship with Ida in which he continues to show that he does not empathize with the racial issues that define her life. She repeatedly tells him that he does not understand the plight of African Americans in their society, but he refutes her claims, insisting that he understands perfectly. Vivaldo does not just lack empathy, he also refuses to acknowledge his lack of empathy, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Vivaldo develops an understanding of the world through betrayal. He has sex with Eric, betraying his girlfriend Ida, and gains an insight into Ida’s life when she explains why she betrayed him by having an affair with Ellis. These contrasting betrayals—in which Eric reiterates his love for Yves and in which Ida shows Vivaldo that he is not the center of her life—expand Vivaldo’s understanding of the world beyond himself. He no longer feels like the protagonist in the universe. These series of betrayals ironically make Vivaldo more empathetic to the views of others, giving him the insight he needs to write a compelling novel, even if he may not be able to salvage his relationship with Ida.

Ida is a person molded by pain. She intuitively understands the racism she has suffered in her life and the expectations placed upon her by a predominantly white society. Her experiences of racial prejudice (as well as misogyny) turn her against the society and make her angry. Ida confides in Rufus that she resents white people and that she seeks to elevate African American people above others to the extent that she criticizes her brother for dating a white woman. Ida’s sense of injustice is exacerbated when her brother Rufus dies. She believes that the same uncaring, discriminatory world causes his death, and she blames others for not being able to see what she sees. Ida no longer resents the discrimination she suffers; she begins to actively seek revenge against the injustices of the society in which she lives.

Shortly after Rufus’s death, Ida begins a relationship with her brother’s apparent best friend. Vivaldo is one of the few people who might be able to empathize with her loss, but she becomes frustrated by his lack of understanding of the pain and suffering that led to Rufus’s death. Vivaldo considers himself to be a liberal progressive, but he lacks the empathy needed to truly understand the racism of the world, a world that is built by and for people like him. Though Ida loves Vivaldo, she resents having to be his teacher as well as his lover. Her relationship with him complicates her desire for revenge but reminds her that even the most loving, dedicated white people still struggle to understand the plight of African Americans.

Ida’s other relationship is with Ellis, a rich, married TV executive. Ellis is the closest the novel has to an antagonist, acting as an embodiment of the entitled, powerful white world that exploits Black people. Ida believes she is being cynical by sleeping with Ellis to advance her career as a singer, but her cynicism cannot compete with his. Ellis gets everything he wants from Ida, using her for his physical pleasure while she becomes increasingly harrowed by the relationship. Ida’s affair with Ellis ultimately compromises her relationship with Vivaldo; she confesses everything to him, including her failure to satisfactorily achieve revenge against society. Ida wants revenge against the world that she believes killed her brother, but she cannot match the brutality, the disregard, and the cynicism of a world that is not designed with her or her people in mind.