Book Review: Giovanni’s Room

Giovanni’s Room is a diasporic novel by James Baldwin written in 1956. It is one of the greatest works for African Americans and sexual identity as well as migration literature.

The main character David portrays a young African American man traveling to Paris, who is in search of self-acceptance. His views on masculinity and being an American challenges him constantly as he cannot fully accept his sexual attraction for men.
David feels anxious in case Giovanni will eventually arouse the “beast [in him that] would never go to sleep again” (Baldwin 110). The beast in this scenario refers to his sexual identity as homosexual African American men. Although David seems to be homosexual, he never admits his sexuality. For David, if one follows the conventional gender roles, everyone’s life will be easier. All he tries to do is to fit into societal gender roles, in fact, all the people around him are miserable because of his denial. At the moment when he realizes his homosexuality, he sees a black cavern, in which David will lose manhood. Since childhood, David’s father forces him to be like a man: work, get married to a woman and continue to do so. This societal view of men is portrayed in David’s relationship with Giovanni. When David is left alone, he decides to play the housewife, which he enjoys for a while, until he confirms to himself “men can never be housewives” (Baldwin 85). This contradiction keeps occurring throughout the book.

Sexual identity is not the only struggle for David, he also has a problem with his nationality. Due to the fact that conventional roles are intertwined with nationalism in America, David always feels inadequate. Thus, his exile as an African American man in Paris is linked to his inner struggle. He is both isolated from the American community and the French community.

“Resented being called an American (and resented resenting it) because it seemed to make me nothing more than that, whatever that was; and I resented being called not an American because it seemed to make me nothing.”

Baldwin 84-

While Paris stands for freedom in expressing one’s identity, America represents masculinity and societal pressure. In his case, David cannot belong to any other country because he is in-between. He has two identities that he is unable to accept: being homosexual and American. He is madly in love with Giovanni but just because he does not want to come to terms with his sexual identity, he isolates himself from the other homosexual men he loves, such as Giovanni. In the midst of their love, Giovanni foreshadows what will happen to David: “You will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home” (Baldwin 154-55). This shows the fact that David is not a random traveler but he is now a migrant and an exile.

Even though James Baldwin is an African American civil rights activist speaking out against racial inequality, this novel focuses on more about exile, social alienation, and sexual identity with symbols and metaphors. Giovanni’s room becomes a prison for both Giovanni and David where they are free to love each other. On the other hand, it is a prison of their impossible future together.