Giovanni's Room

Chapter 1 introduces the theme of the inescapable self. David spends the chapter filing through the events that prompted him to run away to France, believing at the time that a change of scenery would help him to reassert his straightness. David attempts to flee from his attraction to boys like Joey or the soldier by having countless affairs with women and drinking excessively. As a result, he finds himself “in constant motion” (20) so that he doesn’t have to acknowledge his sexuality. In the present day, David sees the futility in his grand movement because “the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight” (21). As his memories will come to show, David’s move to France does not rid him of his attractions to men; it merely situates them in a new setting.

Yet David also claims that he knew “exactly what I was doing when I took the boat to France” (21), referring to the fact that in the 1950s, being gay was not a punishable crime in France like it was in America and England. In early 20th-century America, gay men were believed to pose a threat to dominant heterosexual values, and these men could be arrested for “immoral” sexual behavior. A culture of fear developed—frequently called the Lavender Scare—and governments began enforcing screening processes to find gay men and remove them from military and federal jobs. David references his “panic” at his proximity to such an event, as the boy he slept with in the army was court-marshalled on suspicions of sexual engagement with members of the same sex. The demonization of gay men and the culture of surveillance in America negatively affects David’s self-image and explains his attempts to repress these desires within himself. In France, he can explore these desires in safety from the state, yet he remains haunted by a sense of persecution.

Chapter 1 also establishes the theme of sexual paranoia that riddles David’s interactions with every other character. Although David feels shame for his attraction to men, he also identifies the intense pleasure such love brings him. In the moment with Joey, he feels that “out of this astounding, intolerable pain came joy” (8). His feelings change when he reflects on his actions, as he finds “the desire which was rising in me seemed monstrous” (9). His disgust at himself stems from fears of external persecution and internalized feelings of immorality. His night with Joey gives David a vision of “rumor, suggestion, of half-heard, half-forgotten, half-understood stories, full of dirty words” (9). David fears ostracization and punishment for his actions, and he feels he is personally tainted with “vileness” (9). His paranoia and internalized anti-gay bias leave him in a perpetual state of anxiety and self-hatred.

Baldwin structures the text as a series of memories, with the frame narrative revealing the story’s end so the reader can follow David’s descent into his current anguished state. Present-day David states that these past events have profoundly changed his worldview and made him realize that “people are too various to be treated so lightly” (5). Baldwin primes the reader for David’s relationships where he treated people frivolously, leading to such disastrous ends as Giovanni’s execution. In tragedies, knowing the end at the beginning creates a sense of impending doom throughout the narrative that the reader knows cannot be averted. The structure enhances feelings of sorrow towards the characters and imbues even the happy moments with future sadness.

David is an unreliable narrator because he distorts his memories through evasion, euphemism, and self-preservation. His motive for remembering these events is repentance for unnamed crimes, but he also states he is “too various to be trusted” (5), leaving the reader with mixed signals about his honesty and purpose. David repeats the uncertain phrase “I think” when remembering Joey, but later states he actually remembers everything “so clearly” (8). He evades explicit details about his involvement with other men, such as when he calls his relationship with the solider simply a “frightening […] drop” (20) in himself. David “was very nasty to Joey” (10) after their sexual encounter, but he avoids explicit details of his bullying that led to the boy’s move. Though he seeks forgiveness for his behavior, David refuses to reveal the full extent of his actions. Baldwin thus leaves the reader to continually question David’s memories, his reliability, and his sincerity.

David learns about masculinity and gender roles from his father, who is a drunken womanizer until he remarries. He comes to associate proper manhood with heterosexual prowess and aggression (what Aunt Ellen calls a “bull”). David overhears his father’s expectation that “all I want for David is that he grow up to be a man” (15), and this wish haunts David whenever he makes decisions for his future. Although David despises the friendly closeness that his father constructs based on their shared manhood, he still seeks his father’s approval and that of other heterosexual men, like the older friends he makes after his night with Joey. He tries to reassert his straightness by making up “a long and totally untrue story about a girl [he] was going with” (10) and by beating up Joey, who is smaller than he is. By aggressively distancing himself from Joey, David works to keep himself firmly and fully in the closet.