Identity In Giovanni's Room By James Baldwin

Giovanni’s Room is a beautiful, emotional novel that tells the story of David, a white, homosexual man living in Paris. David struggles with his own sexual identity and masculinity when it comes to developing a relationship with an Italian man named Giovanni. Throughout the novel, David finds himself not adhering to the typical white, heterosexual, American ideal – which causes him to constantly reject his past and any other aspects that form his identity. It is through David and his constant struggle to accept himself that Baldwin is able to form a connection between the internal and external struggles that come with accepting one’s identity. Through Baldwin’s work, one can see how he brings together the aspects of internal and external spaces

to explore the theme of self-identity and masculinity when looking at David and his struggle to break away from the normative ideals of a white, heterosexual, American man.
When discussing external and internal spaces, the first thing that comes to mind is the symbolism of Giovanni’s room and how it serves as a representation of David’s conflicted feelings about his sexual identity.

In Chapter Two – Part Two of the novel, it opens up with David saying, “I scarcely know how to describe that room. It became, in a way, every room I had ever been in and every room l find myself in hereafter will remind me of Giovanni’s room” (pg. 85). David is retelling how vivid the image of Giovanni’s room is and how he will find himself lingering back on it the same way he lingers on his sexual identity. There is no escaping it, and as much as he wants to push away his confusion, it will always remain present. Giovanni’s room can be seen as an external space, a room with torn off wallpaper, dirty laundry, boxes of cardboard leather, or even a red wine spill on the floor. Yet, this external space is one that needs to be clean and renovated – restored to a good state of repair. This can be compared to David’s own self, as he constantly struggles to repair and fix himself in terms of his life and self-acceptance. Giovanni’s room becomes a private space that lets David and Giovanni live a life that they cannot so easily live outside of the confines of the room. To them, it’s a space of privacy and

familiarity.
Giovanni’s Room can arguable anticipate the Loving v. Virginia (1967) case that argued that interracial marriage should be permitted in the state of Virginia. The novel shares similarities of how gay men experience oppression and how “people of color” experience a similar oppression through racial injustice and discrimination. Long before same-sex marriage was brought to court, interracial marriage opened up the doors for further equal rights. It can even be argued that even before the Loving (1967) case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) invited the idea that segregation schools were racial unjust and discriminated against “children of color.” In turn, the Loving case found that it was similarly unjust to regulate whom a person can and cannot marry. According to Loving (1967), “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State” (pg. 4). This is a sample text from the case that demonstrated the argument in the Loving (1967) case. Nonetheless, Giovanni’s Room was a novel that explored David’s struggle of accepting his sexual-identity and coming to terms with his own past. The homophobia and oppression that is presented all throughout the novel (including from David himself, as he consistently denies his homosexuality) can often be compared to the oppression that “people of color” experienced when struggling with discrimination and racial identity.