Giovanni's Room

Baldwin expands the scope of the symbol of Giovanni’s room in Chapter 2. David describes the room in more thorough detail, noting how it “was not large enough for two” (85). He connects the mess and disarray to Giovanni’s hidden grief and prior lack of desire to live; the room’s garbage is “Giovanni’s regurgitated life” (87) that he struggles to contain. A telling detail within the overarching symbol of the room is the archaic wallpaper depiction of “a lady in a hoop skirt and a man in knee breeches [who] perpetually walked together, hemmed in by roses” (86). The heterosexual couple looms over David and Giovanni’s relationship, subtly imposing dominant culture’s expectations on the men and re-confirming to David the aberrant nature of the relationship.

David—unable to imagine a life beyond the restraints of heterosexuality—begins to take on the traditional feminine role of housewife while Giovanni is away at work by cleaning up the room’s mess. David’s attempts to mimic heterosexual gender roles produce only a short-term pleasurable effect before he comes to feel conflicted about his masculinity once again. He asserts, “I am not a housewife—men can never be housewives” (88). David feels an immense burden to save Giovanni but cannot find a way to think beyond heterosexual expectations of what a home and family is. Rather than imagine new relationship configurations that leave both men fulfilled, David plans his escape from the situation altogether.

At the American Express Office, David feels both a sense of distance from and closeness to the other American tourists in France. After being in Paris for so long, he can sense himself perceiving Americans as an identifiable, unified horde with no “distinguished patterns, habits, [or] accents of speech” (89). Giovanni uses David’s proximity to this indifferentiable group to understand and control his behavior:

When Giovanni wanted me to know that he was displeased with me, he said I was a ‘vrai americain’; conversely, when delighted, he said that I was not American at all; and on both occasions he was striking, deep in me, a nerve which did not throb in him (89).

The tension David feels between his affinity to his home country and his desire not to be defined by it creates internal conflict and conflict with Giovanni. David’s father calls David “as American as pork and beans” (91), further enhancing David’s feelings of alienation in France.

David’s silent interaction with the passing sailor emphasizes his paranoia of being readable and being judged for his sexuality. His suspicion is so extreme that he thinks the sailor can sense his difference through a tone in his voice, even though he hasn’t spoken. He notices in the sailor’s “contemptuously lewd and knowing” (92) glance the same contempt with which David looks at Jacques, which he assumes places him and the older man on an equal plane. The interaction deeply scares David because his sexual desire appears to be turning into a more general envy and affection for young men, which is “vastly more frightening than lust” (93). The interaction makes him cling to Hella’s imminent return, as he believes her presence will remedy his wandering eyes.

David attempts to convince himself that his affair with Giovanni is just “something that had happened to me once—it would be something that happened to many men once” (94). David downplays his love for Giovanni and all it has changed in him, effectively deceiving himself into believing he and Giovanni both knew their relationship would have to end eventually. However, his illusion crumbles when he attempts to test his attraction to women in his one-night stand with Sue. David can’t help but thinks of Giovanni during the entire interaction and feels “a dreadful holding back” (98). He internally wills the encounter to be over, feeling worse about using Sue than for loving Giovanni. David leaves the interaction more confused than ever, having proved—through betrayal—the depth of his attachment to Giovanni.