Sexual Identity in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room Essay Example

Imagine having to hide your true sexual identity to avoid being judged. That is exactly what is happening in James Baldwin’s novel, Giovanni’s Room, where David is struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. David is a straight man but is fighting homosexual desires. Therefore, David decides to leave everything he knows in America and go to Paris, France. In Paris is where David comes to the biggest decision in his life where he must pick between Giovanni and Hella. David loves Giovanni but can’t fully embrace the truth to himself so, he leaves Giovanni to be with Hella whom he tricks into thinking that he is heterosexual. His decision hurts them both in the end. In Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin uses the first-person point of view, David’s father’s approval, David and Hella’s conformity to gender roles, and how sexual orientation and gender roles are perceived to convey that gender standards interfere with a person’s sense of self. 

First, Giovanni's Room is written in first-person point of view from David's perspective. James Baldwin presents the novel's events from David's first-person viewpoint, which allows the reader to see the thoughts and feelings David has throughout the novel. The novel also alternates between the present and past tense. Whenever David is speaking in the present tense, he is describing what is happening on the day that Giovanni is to be executed. In the novel, it says, “He kisses the cross and clings to it. The priest gently lifts the cross away. Then they lift Giovanni. The journey begins” (Baldwin 168). This is David’s description of Giovanni right before he is about to be hung. This shows that David finally realizes that he loves Giovanni because he can’t get him out of his head. David also can’t help to realize the mistake he made of leaving Giovanni, which has led to his death. When David speaks in the past tense, it is mostly about his reflections on homosexuality, and the events that led up to Giovanni’s relationship and eventually their breakup. By looking from a different perspective, this alternate viewpoint puts all the events in perspective with the book's ultimate tragedy, since the reader knows from the very start of the book that Giovanni will be executed, but the reader doesn’t know exactly what he did or how it led to his death until the very end.

David personally emphasizes that heterosexuality is associated with masculinity. This issue started at a young age for David because of his relationship with his father. David began to have physical intimacy with his childhood friend, Joey when he was just a teenager. In the morning, after Joey and David had sex, it says, “I wondered what Joey’s mother would say when she saw the sheets. Then I thought of my father, who had no one in the world but me, my mother having died when I was little” (Baldwin 9). David realized that he couldn’t stay and be with Joey anymore because he was worried about what people would think of him, specifically his father. Since David’s mother had died when he was very young, David is very eager to make his father proud and since his father wants him to grow up and be a man, he knows that he cannot be gay or bisexual with Joey. Consequently, David presents himself as a heterosexual man despite being sexually attracted to men. 

In addition, when David is in Paris, his father writes letters to him telling him that he should come home and see his father. After David gets done reading his father’s letter, he says, “The question that he longed to ask was not in the letter and neither was the offer: Is it a woman, David? Bring her on home. I don’t care who she is. Bring her on home and I’ll help you get set up” (Baldwin 91). David believes that his father is unable to ask the question because he is too afraid that David would say that it isn’t a woman. This is also one of the biggest reasons that David doesn’t want to come out as gay or bisexual because he fears that he will disappoint his father. Additionally, it illustrates how David believes that his father will not accept him for who he is unless he has a relationship with a woman, as this would show his father that he has raised a man. A sense of power and masculinity overtakes David because of the gender roles in the 1950s society, where men held most of the power in relationships. This also made David feel as if he had no choice but to be heterosexual if he wanted to be accepted in society.

Correspondingly, when David heard that Hella is coming back to Paris to be with him he celebrated because he knew he could finally fulfill his role as a man. He doesn’t tell Giovanni that Hella is coming back to Paris to be with him because he knows that it would break his heart to hear that he was leaving. In the novel, David read the letter from Hella saying that she is coming back to Paris to be with him. He immediately goes out and celebrates by having drinks with Sue and eventually going back to her place to have sex (Baldwin 99). To re-establish David's heterosexuality after so long spent with Giovanni, he goes out and has sex with Sue. David only uses Sue for sex and afterward, she tries to get him to stay for dinner and tries to make a date to do this again. On the other hand, David makes excuses saying that he’s too busy because he was just using her for sex. David knows that what he did to Sue is far more evil than anything he ever did to Giovanni, because he gave Giovanni a gift of love, but isn't brave enough to admit that while he has no emotion toward Sue. This implies that David lying to himself that he is heterosexual shows that it hurts other people including Sue and Giovanni.

For David, to be a real man, no one should ever question his manliness. When David gets involved with Giovanni in Paris and starts living with him, he gets a realization that he cannot be with Giovanni if he wants to be masculine. In the novel, when David is walking back to Giovanni’s room, he thinks to himself that he wants children and to have his manhood unquestioned, being able to watch his woman take care of the children (Baldwin 104). David realized that Hella was coming back from Spain and that he finally had a way out of the life he was living with Giovanni. As David leaves Giovanni, he is only doing so because he doesn't dare to stay with him, which would mean that he would have to be honest about his desire to be in a long-term relationship with a man. As a consequence of this refusal to confront himself, David lies to both himself and Giovanni, driving Giovanni away to protect his fragile sense of self-worth and appearance as a straight male.

Hella also wanted to conform to the gender roles that were associated with women in the 1950s. When David proposes to her in Paris, she says that she needs some time to think about her decision, so she goes on a trip to Spain. In Spain, she continues to write letters to David to tell him everything about her trip and how everything is going. Once Hella finally returns to Paris, she says, “I began to realize it in Spain—that I wasn’t free, that I couldn’t be free until I was attached—no, committed—to someone” (Baldwin 126). In the 1950s, women were only recognized in terms of their associations with men. Hella realized that if she ever wanted to make a place in the world she would need to be associated with David. So, when she returns home, she decides to marry David conforming to the norm of the gender role of a woman. This issue shows that men have more power in relationships over women in the 1950s, but David doesn’t want to have power over Hella. David doesn’t want Hella to be at his mercy, but Hella believes that she must be at his mercy if she wants to make a place for herself in this world. Also, men were to be the sole provider of the household while women were to be housewives. In the novel, while Giovanni is at work David starts cleaning up Giovanni’s room and throwing away trash, and then he realizes that he isn’t a housewife because men can never be housewives (Baldwin 88). This displays that a man can’t be the one to stay home and clean the house but rather that is a woman’s job. This portrays both men’s and women’s gender norms because men are supposed to be out working providing for their significant other, while women are to be home cleaning the house and cooking dinner. David realizes then that he can’t be in a relationship with Giovanni because he can’t be the housewife while Giovanni goes out and works. 

In conclusion, the impact of gender norms diminishes a person’s sense of self-esteem in the novel. David has hurt many people because he is too afraid to show his true sexual identity. James Baldwin conveys this by using an abundance of strategies and techniques. By Baldwin using the first-person point of view, the reader can see and feel the thoughts that David is going through in each situation. This helps demonstrate that David is secretly hiding his sexual identity of being homosexual because the reader sees that for David to be a man he must be in a heterosexual relationship. Then, David seeking his father’s approval hides his true sexual identity conforming to what his father feels makes a man. David conforms to being a heterosexual man because he can’t come to the truth to embrace that he is homosexual. Similarly, Hella conforms to the standard of being a woman. She realizes that women aren’t socially accepted unless they are associated with a man. This makes her drop who she truly is to fulfill the gender role of a woman in the 1950s. Baldwin’s main theme was that David couldn’t come to terms with his sexual orientation which led to him hurting the people that he loved. Therefore, just because there are gender norms does not mean that people must conform to them. Instead, they should find someone who makes them truly happy.