Homosexuality In Giovanni's Room By James Baldwin

James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room is a rebellious book that tells the story of a controversial love between two men, David and Giovanni, in the romantic city of Paris. In Giovanni's Room, David searches for his identity through his homosexuality, his masculinity, and his feeling of exile as he experiences new loves and loves lost. This is significant because Giovanni's Room was a novel far before it's time due to its narrative of a man scrutinizing his identity as a homosexual in a time where homosexuality was contempt. This is proven by David’s hunger for a heteronormative relationship, his feeling of helplessness in his decisions, and his lack of a “sense of belonging”.
David is searching for his identity through his homosexuality. He bemoans …show more content…
When Giovanni and David begin to spend more time together, David feels as though he is losing his masculinity and is becoming a housewife (Lombardo). The thought that Giovanni is playing the role of “the husband” angers David as he and Giovanni fight about the womanly roles, "You want me to stay here and wash the dishes and cook the food and clean this miserable closet of a room and kiss you when you come in through that door and lie with you at night and be your little girl," (Sedaris). He fights his homosexuality and yearns for his masculinity to the point of meeting with a woman from a bar and having sex with her just to prove to himself that he can feel the same way about a woman (Shin). This event backfires for David as he turns around and sees a young sailor docked for the night and finds even more pleasure with him rather than the woman he was with earlier (Lombardo). David’s identity becomes a crisis as Giovanni begins to poke fun at “being an American”, the one thing that David was sure of. This causes David to truly suffer and question himself as he talks about walking down a river and thinking about death, but not suicide (Abur-Rahman). David talks about how he hates Giovanni for what he's done to him, yet later he says "then I wanted to forgive him,” (Sedaris). This is important because David became a relatable character with questions about his identity just like everybody else. Although this character isn’t supposed to be one that a reader learns to love, David becomes the character that is what every person stands for as he never acknowledges that he is the one at fault