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The Limitless Heart is an autobiographical essay written by Fenton Johnson in 1991 and published in 2017 as part of his essay collection Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays. The events of the essay take place in 1991; it is devoted to describing the unnamed narrator’s visit to the parents of his late partner, whom he had lost to AIDS. Through retelling this encounter and the subsequent evening, Fenton Johnson codes his experience with the intersection of his queerness with his masculine gender identity and shows that multiple resolutions to this internal conflict are possible.
In the essay, it is revealed that the narrator is visiting the parents of his partner, Larry, due to a promise he made to him. However, it then becomes clear the narrator is really mostly visiting Larry’s father, Fred, as the latter “does not talk about Larry with the women of his life”, including his wife and Larry’s mother, Kathy (Johnson). Moreover, even the absence of women does not make it easy for Fred to talk about what he is really feeling regarding his son’s passing. The narrator notes a similar urging in himself, stating that he and Larry’s father both “subscribe implicitly, jointly, unconditionally to this code of conduct” (Johnson). As a result of following this “code of conduct”, the narrator and Larry’s father never discuss directly how Larry’s death affected them and end up exchanging idle stories of the past instead.
Although the intimacy of the moment can hardly be overstated—the narrator is meeting his late partner’s father—both men are constrained by the notions of masculinity that prevent them from sharing their emotions. The masculine “code of conduct” described by Johnson aligns with the findings of gender studies researchers, who shared observations regarding the fact that men are socially discouraged from showing their emotions and crying (Ford 53). In a tragic way, this seems to contrast with the titular ‘limitless heart’ that the narrator used to describe his connection with Larry. In fact, it reads like there is a very palpable wall between the narrator and Larry’s father because, as they are both men, they cannot share what occupies their hearts most.
After his visit to Larry’s parents, the narrator attends a queer bar. There, he encounters a drag performer and becomes witness to him receiving a kiss on his cheek, as well as a dollar bill, from his grandmother in a touching display of support. The heartfelt scene renders the previous episode’s tragedy all the more poignant. Through the juxtaposition, Johnson argues that one is not doomed to be either a gay man or a son-in-law or a son or a man, but that one can combine these multiple identities. Despite the fact that the tension with Larry’s father is never resolved, the essay ends with the narrator thinking of the “limitless heart” yet again, now with a vaguely hopeful undertone to it.
In conclusion, Fenton Johnson’s essay The Limitless Heart presents an honest account of his experience with trying to reconcile his queer identity with his masculinity. The struggles with masculinity he encounters and describes are thoroughly documented in gender studies. Through showing his visit to his late partner’s parents and his observations from a drag bar, he demonstrates that queerness and masculinity can coexist in a single person.
Works Cited
Johnson, Fenton. “The Limitless Heart.” Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays. Sarabande Books, 2017. Web.
Ford, Victoria. “Men Who Care: Analyzing Masculinity within Peer Support Organizations.” Sprinkle: An Undergraduate Journal of Feminist and Queer Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2019, pp. 50-61.
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