Another Country

The opening chapter of Another Country portrays the final hours of Rufus’s life. Rufus is a violent, abusive man who hurts many people. However, he is portrayed in a sympathetic light. Rufus rages against a society that oppresses him. His behavior is a reaction to his oppression, part of his attempt to reason with an unreasonable world. As a bisexual Black man, Rufus has spent his entire life searching for a place to belong. His love affairs end tragically and violently because Rufus does not believe himself worthy of love. He has spent so long in a society that brutalizes him that he has internalized this hate, becoming a self-loathing person. Rufus cannot understand why anyone would dare love him. Leona and Eric are victims of this self-loathing; their love for Rufus becomes a stick with which he beats himself because he does not believe himself to be worthy of anyone’s love. He reacts angrily to Eric and Leona; his violent, abusive behavior is the manifestation of this self-loathing. The only people who stay close to Rufus are either related to him by blood, like Ida, or maintain some degree of emotional distance from him, like