Giovanni's Room Analysis

In James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, the narrator acknowledges how people of different social classes are treated differently amongst society. Characters of high status are often described as being as manipulative and having the ability to control those around them with their money, but still respected. While characters of low status are shown as being naive and clinging to others for their own personal gain and, looked down upon. In James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, the narrator demonstrates how society views social classes and how that influences their perception of individuals.

When the narrator introduces Guillaume and Jacques, they are shown as being wealthy men who entrance young and gullible boys with their money to get what they want.

The narrator describe the type of person Jacques is by saying, “he wanted to trust everybody, he was incapable of trusting a living soul; to make up for this, he threw his money away on people; inevitably, then, he was abused. Then he buttoned his wallet, locked his door, and retired into strong self-pity which was, perhaps the only thing he had which really belonged to him” (23). Jacques has the high status to exploit the people around him with his money, but the attention they give him isn’t enough to fill his empty void. People are entranced with him because of the power he has with his money, he can get them to do whatever he wants from them. They then began to abuse him meaning using him for their own advantages. Once he is finished with them he begins to draw back and release them for his grasp. He is no longer interested and no longer gives them his money, this causes him to realize that those people don’t belong to him and neither does the money it all just temporary happiness to fill his loneliness he feels inside. Guillaume unlike Jacques is seemed to be more pretentious and arrogant, yet people still flock to him and respect him. Guillaume is the wealthiest of all and uses this to his advantage. When Giovanni is discussing the horrible work conditions of his previous job during a car ride, Guillaume makes a smug comment by saying, “Tell him who rescued you” (49). Guillaume makes this comment because he knows that without him Giovanni would be nothing. Giovanni owes his life to Guillaume because he has given him a better job and put him back on his feet. Giovanni has no choice but to respect Guillaume and do anything he asks of him. As the car ride persists, Jacques and Guillaume begin to notice how Giovanni isn’t flirting with them instead he is giving David all of his attention. They become jealous and envious because they are both men of money and are so accustomed to men throwing themselves at them that they are not used to being ignored. They are used to having control of those around them and having all the attention so having that all taken away by someone as poor as David is a shock to them. Despite Giovanni giving all his attention to David he still knows he has to please Guillaume and Jacques in the long run because unlike David they can finically take care of him.
After the death of Guillaume, newspapers began to shine a horrible light on the type of character Giovanni was while painting Guillaume to be an honorable and respectable man of France. The narrator describes this situation by saying, “…As though by some magnificently tacit agreement, with every day that he as at large, the press became more vituperative against him and more gentle towards Guillaume. It was remembered that there perished with Guillaume one of the oldest names in France…It is perhaps not as incredible as it certainly seemed to me, but Guillaume’s name became fantastically entangled with French history, French history, French honor, and French glory, and very nearly became, indeed a symbol of French manhood” (150). Despite Guillaume being horrendous and vile, his name carries a lot of history and is respected amongst the French. Guillaume is a man of high status and brings dignity to the French which is because his family name holds authority amongst the French. David goes on to say, ““But listen,” I said to Hella, “he was just a disgusting old fairy. That’s all he was!”” (150). David believes he is one of the few people who know the truth about Guillaume, but no one is willing to speak up afraid of the repercussions and exposing themselves in the process. Giovanni on the other hand is being ripped apart and abused by newspapers because he is an immigrant and poor at that. His name holds no weight or authority to the French, he doesn’t come from a respectable family like Guillaume. This is why is so much easier to tarnish his reputation than it is Guillaume. The rich business man is being respect and being portrayed as noble and prestige. While the poor immigrant is being abused and being portrayed as horrid and atrocious for the crime he committed against someone of higher status.
In Aliyyah I. Abur-Rahman’s “Simply A Menaced Boy”: Analogizing Color, Undoing Dominance in James Baldwin's “Giovanni's Room”, the author discusses the differences between social classes and the how Jacques and Guillaume treat those around them with their high status. The author starts off by saying, “…The problem, as Baldwin puts it forth, lies in the economic ordering of society that places on sale emaciated, foreign boys to be purchased and in every way (ab)used by wealthy, sexually rapacious, closeted natives. Jacques and Guillaume go about town buying sexual favors from young boys who are quite literally starved and then cast the boys back into the streets once the old men have been satiated. Not the boys' bodies but their hunger acquiesces to the demands imposed by Jacques and Guillaume's lust” (1). The author is acknowledging how Jacques and Guillaume use their money to exploit those around them. They promise these young and impressionable boys pipe dreams, when in reality they are only going to string those boys along for their own satisfaction. The author goes on to say, “Baldwin depicts Jacques and Guillaume as pathetic, deplorable old men not because they undo the heterosexuality of young foreigners but because they rob these boys of their own volition and love. In other words, Baldwin indicts social systems that grant protection and prestige to wealthy, powerful men in society without regard for the detriment they cause to those who exist on society's fringes, and without regard for the conditions within which the severely impoverished and politically disenfranchised are forced to live “(1). Regardless of Jacques and Guillaume being despicable human beings they are still respected and protected because of their status. During the time when news broke about Guillaume’s death newspapers remembered Guillaume by constantly bringing up his family name and the glory and honor it had behind it. If this wasn’t the case and he was a poor man like Giovanni, this murder wouldn’t have been such a scandal. It wouldn’t have been constantly talked about if they were both nobodies. Unfortunately, being that Guillaume is so well known, people can’t see passed his status. No one seems to know about the boys he picks up from the street and how he treats them before disposing of them. The young boys are probably afraid to come forward being that like Giovanni they are of low status and will not be taken seriously. The difference in perception of these individuals depends on their social class.
In Trudier’s Harris’ South of Tradition: Essays on African American Literature, he briefly mentions the power structure in Giovanni’s Room. Harris discusses how, “David is aware that Jacques finds him attractive; he therefore uses that attraction to his own advantage. The interchange is no longer about feelings, but power. Feelings simply place Jacques in the position of the outsider, the one who can be used and manipulated by David, who does exactly that to acquire from Jacques some of necessities of life, such as money. David becomes a coquette in teasingly accepting the money without granting the sexual favors, the kind of manipulation that characterizes many of his intimate exchanges” (26). This further illiterate the point that men of lower status, like Giovanni and David have no choice but to use men like Jacques and Guillaume to get places in life. Not necessarily moving up the social ladder but in Giovanni’s case having his rent paid and food to eat. Those men use Giovanni and Giovanni uses them in return to get what he wants and needs. There is little to no feelings involved in this exchange. In the beginning Giovanni is clearly uncomfortable with Jacques’ advances and has no desire to have sex with Guillaume. This quickly changes when he needs things from them, he quickly latches on to Jacques and contemplates having sex with Guillaume to get his job back. Men like Jacques and Guillaume are only useful for finical security they serve no other purpose.
Dividing The Mind: Contradictory Portraits of Homoerotic Love in Giovanni's Room written by Yasmin Y.

DeGout, the author discusses how there are economic factors that influence character’s decision making. DeGout comments that, “Furthermore, socioeconomic conditions are directly related to his [Giovanni] fate in France and his homosexual-behavior there. During his first encounter with Guillaume, he avoids making a scene in the cinema because he knows that Guillaume, a well-dressed and well-established Frenchman, can have him arrested. He goes to dinner at Guillaume's home because he has not eaten, and he does not remain sexually "untouched" (83) by Guillaume in his bid to obtain a job. It is his poverty that leads him to the homosexual bar where he is working when he meets David--a bar where Giovanni is surrounded by those whom he cannot believe "ever went to bed with anybody" (38) and where he is treated like "a valuable racehorse or a rare bit of china" (45). His success in warding off the sexual approaches of Guillaume causes him to be fired, and when David abandons him, he is forced to trade sexual favors with Jacques for sustenance, acting effeminate to please the older man. When Jacques fails him, he sells his body with the other boys on the streets and makes his way toward his capital crime at Guillaume's bar” (1). Due to Giovanni’s economic status even before he came to France it influences his decision making. If he was well off as Jacques or Guillaume, he wouldn’t have to follow money and rely on others to take care of him financially. If he wasn’t living in poverty the events that transpired between him, Jacques, and Guillaume would have never happened. Giovanni would still be alive and he would have never met David and been tangled in his own mess of an indecisive love life. It was because Giovanni was poor that he had to take the job as bartender and when he lost that job he had no choice, but to cling to Jacques to assist him. When that failed he had

no other choice but to beg Guillaume for his job back and he was even willing to trade sexually favors for it because he desperately needed it. Giovanni’s economic status to blame for the chaos that was in his life, if he was wealthier he wouldn’t be in these mishaps, he would be alive.
Additionally, in Sexual Cultures: Black Gay Man: Essays written by Reid-Pharr, Robert Delany, and Samuel R. the authors briefly illustrate how Giovanni became a product of desire because that’s how everyone perceived him. The authors observe that, “…Baldwin, in Giovanni’s Room faces the task of examining the relation of the black to the white, the body to the mind. It is the desire for the other’s body, in the person of Giovanni, that dictates the action of this text. Giovanni’s nominally white, southern Italian body is bought and sold in the course of the novel. Giovanni becomes simply a creature of his body, a creature of sex and desire, by which other men are able to gauge their own humanity” (127). Society only sees Giovanni for his body not what he’s really worth. This could be because he is a man of lower class and no one is willing to take him seriously or respect him. This is why his image is reduced to him only being desired by older and wealthier men. No one is willing to see past this because he doesn’t have any authority, he’s not a Jacques or Guillaume that automatically gains respect from the public because of their money.
In The Metaphorical Construction of Sexuality in Giovanni's Room, written by Kemp Williams the author proposes that money is being used as an escape for characters of lower status. Williams notes that, “David, of course, feels as trapped by Giovanni's room as he feels trapped by his homosexuality, and he vows to use money from his father to 'escape' it.” (1). In other words, Giovanni and sometimes even David view money as something they can use to escape their harsh realities. The young boys in Guillaume’s bar also view money like this as well, which is why they spend so much of their time talking to these wealthy older men. Money is a means of escape and freedom to them, they will no longer be held back because of their economic standing. They can finally gain the respect they desire once they are finically secure.
In conclusion, what does socioeconomic standings say about social class.