“I Can’t Therefore No One Can”

In class on Tuesday, we discussed David’s portrayal of the other characters in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. I believe that we came to a consensus that David isn’t particularly nice or kind to a lot of the characters. He spends a lot of time with Jacques, but he doesn’t really see him as someone important to him. Even earlier in the novel, David forces Joey out of his life and insults him later in his adolescence. However, when it comes to openly gay characters, particularly those who may even be transgender, David’s language isn’t just rude, it’s dehumanizing and full of a deeper resentment.

We’ve discussed that Giovanni’s Room primarily deals with the inner shame and struggles of David and his sexuality, so I believe that this resentment towards the dramatically dressed men and openly gay characters in the bar in part one stems from his own inner turmoil and projects that self loathing onto characters who are able to express themselves.

As long as his sexuality is down played, David doesn’t seem to think about it and doesn’t think about his actions or what he is doing. The majority of his actions with Giovanni are normal conversations that just characterize them, but as soon as their sexuality is made noticeable or pointed out by other characters, David becomes self conscious and starts to feel ashamed. When he and Jacques first meet Giovanni, their conversation is about how to subtly hit on Giovanni without their intentions being made clear. Then Jacques lets it slip:

“It must,” Jacques suggested…”seem very strange to you.”

“Strange?” asked Giovanni. “Why?”

“All these men…and so few women.” (29)

At this moment, David “was ashamed that [he] was with him” (29). Their sexuality was made clear to Giovanni, so David becomes defensive and retracts a little.

While Jacques and Guillaume are off to the side, David and Giovanni have their conversation, and it’s subtle and not too revealing as the two characters learn more about each other.

With the arrival of the more flamboyantly dressed men, David’s attitude changes. It’s not just shame or an awareness of his sexuality, it’s hateful:

“Now someone whom I had never seen before came out of the shadows toward me. It looked like a mummy or a zombie…It glittered in the dim light; the thin, black hair was violent with oil, combed forward, hanging in bangs; the eyelids gleamed with mascara, the mouth raged with lipstick. The face was white and thoroughly bloodless with some kind of foundation cream; it stank of powder and a gardenia-like perfume…He wore buckles on his shoes.” (38-39)

We talked in class about the dehumanizing “it” and only revealing the gendered “he” at the very end. This man is similarly described like the (who I’m assuming to be) trans-women earlier mentioned (26-27). He describes them as wearing “improbable combinations” (26) and compares them to “parrots” (26) and “peacocks” (27), which is still dehumanizing, and David describes one of them as being “grotesque.”

I believe that David’s inner turmoil and shame leads him to be transphobic and homophobic. There is a popular saying that goes along the lines of “the most fervent homophobes are typically those who are closeted themselves.” Even though David isn’t necessarily closeted, he has issues displaying or admitting to his sexuality publicly, even though he is in a gay bar. He is so distraught over his shame and inability to express his sexuality that he resents those who are able to do so freely and confidently. The previously mentioned man David describes as a zombie is described moving like “a princess and moved, flaming, away through the crowd” (40). The man is described with the utmost confidence. He even has the last word over David, saying, “You will be very unhappy. Remember that I told you so” (40). He sees through David and his shame. He realizes his self destructive behavior and thoughts and how it affects his actions and treatment of other gay men.

At a loss for words, David has violent thoughts. When Jacques mentions how well he and Giovanni were hitting it off, David “wanted to do something to his cheerful, hideous, worldly face which would make it impossible for him ever again to smile at anyone the way he was smiling at [him]” (40). He had been bested and seen through completely and has no other way to deal with his own turmoil he reverts to an immature state where he can’t even express his emotions and wants to resort to physical action.

David’s shame over his sexuality drives Giovanni’s Room. He is always running from himself and even thinks lesser of the people around him because of his own inability to cope with himself. Whether he realizes it or not, David adopts a behavior of “if I can’t have it, nobody can” and becomes resentful of anyone who can do what he cannot. He has pushed these thoughts so deep into the back of his mind, he cannot even process why he feels this way in the early scenes of the novel.

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