It seems that it is very much impossible for David to accept the strange package that love comes in. What, in David's mind, are the tragic outcomes of his love affair with Giovanni? How does the final conclusion of the novel negate or diminish David's original ideas of tragedy?
The author possesses a keen sense of lyricism in his writing. I find his writing a bit haunting. How do you feel about it? Do you believe it possess a haunting lyricism? Take a look at these passages:
1. "perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition" (pp.121)
2. "descending night...protected them against the darkness and the long moan of this long night...and wonder, like me, how they had fallen out of the web of safety. What a long way, I thought, I've come-to be destroyed." (pp. 137)
3."But the end of innocence is also the end of guilt." (pp.148)
4. "And at moments like this I felt that we were merely enduring and committing the longer and lesser and more perpetual murder." (pp.157)
5. "...watching, in the window pane, my reflection, which steadily becomes more faint. I seem to be fading away before my eyes-this fancy amuses me, and I laugh to myself."(pp.220)
There is a serious disparity in David’s story about what makes a home and what a home consists of? How is Giovanni’s room- the room Giovanni and David inhabit for a short time, exhibit a true home for David and/or Giovanni? Giovanni envisioned a safe nest for himself and his lover, while David saw something very different. In retrospect what is Giovanni’s room indicative of ?
I feel David was trying to convince the reader and thus himself of what a home should be and as he does not know he keeps on fiddling with the idea. Giovanni on the other hand seems more grounded. there is that one scene where after he gets fired Giovanni starts to break away the wall and dig into the brick to make a Book shelf for David. Here we see Giovanni is trying to show David you can make any place a home. But this action seemed to terrify David as it was permanent.
ReplyDeleteThe lyrical writing was very fitting in context with the story, I did not find it haunting but rather representative of what the words are trying to tell. Baldwin used the flow of words as a dance to show control and emotion.
like number 4. "And at moments like this I felt that we were merely enduring and committing the longer and lesser and more perpetual murder." (pp.157) ~ this line is truly lyrical and it conveys to me the reader the difficulty of the thought and the depth of the emotion as the words flow and are long words that are further stretched with the constant addition of the word "And." Out of everything in the story i enjoyed Baldwin's style of writing the most, the words alone did not tell the story but rather the symphony the formed!
I keep returning to the idea of "Giovanni's Room" as a metaphor for David's homosexuality and other aspects of himself that he would rather not face. David says, "It [the room] became. . . every room I had ever been in, and every room I find myself in hereafter will remind me of Giovanni's room. I did not really stay there very long. . . but it still seems to me that I spent a lifetime there" (84). The room is a place in which Giovanni spends some time (as though on a vacation) while waiting for his "real life" with Hella to begin.
ReplyDeleteAlthough he experiences moments of satisfaction in the room with Giovanni, it is nevertheless claustrophobic. It is cluttered as is David's own consciousness and they find it necessary to keep "the windows closed most of the time" even obscuring "the window panes with a heavy, white cleaning polish" (84).
David appears capable of accepting this arrangement with Giovanni as long as it is isolated from the outer reality, consequently the room functions as a closet if you will in which David engages his homosexuality, secure in the belief that it is protected from the outer reality.
Jonathan, I agree with you that for David, Giovanni’s room symbolizes the difficulties of being in a homosexual relationship. I feel like the reason David has such an issue with being open about his sexuality is his awareness of the homophobia within the society that the finds himself in. His self-denial is an indication that he cannot comfortably and openly live his life as a gay man because of the consequences or backlash he may face. At one point David’s father says to Ellen, “all I want for David is that he grow up to be a man. And when I say a man, Ellen, I don’t mean a Sunday school teacher” (Baldwin 15). It seems to me that David is protecting himself from the judgment of the likes of his father, whose remark is indicative of his homophobia and exactly the kind of reactions David fears from those around him.
ReplyDeleteFor the very last question, after #5, I think that the room serves as a shield or safe haven for the couple, but when David brings his insecurities and issues into the room, he destroys his love nest. At one point, where Giovanni is working and bringing home the income while David stayed in the room and cooked and cleaned, David freaked out because he believed that he was the woman, the wife in the relationship. It was David's issues about his role and identity that destroys Giovanni's room. Giovanni"s room is the very place where David finds love at its bareness and also the place where he contaminates it.
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