Giovanni's Room

Although both the previous events did put David into an adverse position, the following experience changed David’s outlook on life for the better. Finally there was someone to tell David the true meaning of mankind, Uncle Axel. Uncle Axel tells him to be proud of his telepathic abilities, instead of praying to be what everyone else thinks is the true image. Uncle Axel also changes David's outlook on the true image of man, he explains to him how it's not one's physical features that define him, but what's in his mind.

After dinner one night, Wes suggested that David and his mother go for a walk as he wanted to talk to Marie again. But they didn’t go far, they went to their backyard. David decides to ask his mother what was going on, even though he already knew. She reply’s with saying that there may be possible trouble with the Indians. He asks his mother many questions about the Marie situations, but she gives him vague answers.

After a visit from his mother at his foster home, David decides to take back all of the things he told Mrs. Gold about his mother. He lied and told her that all the stories about his mother beating him and mistreating him were untrue and that he really was a bad child. As much as Mrs. Gold tried to reassure him David continued to lie and yell at Mrs. Gold. "David, you have to understand that in a person’s life there are a few precious moments in which decisions, choices that you make now, will effect you for the rest of your life" (57). This explains the ethical dilemma that David was put in. Although he wanted to free himself from the pain of his mother he also did not want to hurt his family. He felt ashamed for letting everyone know "the family secret”. David shows extreme selflessness when making his decision to lie to his social worker. According to moral of the story, selflessness is defined as concern for the interests of others. Extreme selflessness is when a person is solely concerned for the

Baldwin felt torn between the feeling of hatred that he had always felt for his father and a gnawing feeling of guilt for not being able to understand the reason for his father's detached behavior. He emphasizes, "The moment I saw him I knew why I had put off this visit so long. I told my mother that I did not want to see him because I hated him. But this was not true. It was only that I had hated him and I wanted to hold onto this hatred" (230). Baldwin was afraid to admit that his hatred was meaningless; but that feeling of hate had resided in him for as long as he could remember. Baldwin was not sure if he

David must pretend, not just for the remainder of the novel, but for the next forty years, to be ignorant of Frank’s crimes, and much of what is happening because his parents do not realise that he has

The idea of relating public and private events in Baldwin’s own experiences is instituted later in the essay in order to transition from narrative to analysis. Baldwin started telling a story about when he lived in New Jersey before the time of his father’s death. He talked about his personal treatment by white people in the south, a first hand account of the racism of that particular era. He learned of the hostility of the Jim Crow Laws inflicted on African Americans during that time period. His story was analogous to nearly all African Americans at that point. When Baldwin lived in New Jersey, he became exposed to the racism of the south that occurred in restaurants and diners. During one of those experiences he wrote, “I

First, David’s mother gave him enough courage to keep hope his father would be all right after the Nazis arrested him. Because their own house was no longer safe from Nazi invasion, David’s family was staying with friends. However,

Baldwin determines that violence and racial separatism are not acceptable solutions for achieving “power”. Baldwin believes that black people will only be able to achieve lasting influence in America if they love and accept white people. In contrast, writing 52 years after Baldwin, Coats tells his own son to “struggle” but not

Firstly, Aunt Harriet has a big influence on David, because David feels sorrow due to the situation that his aunt is going through. Aunt Harriet is talking to David’s father, "This is the third time. They'll take my baby away again like they took the others. I can't stand that - not again. Henry will turn me out, I think. He'll find another wife, who can give him proper children. There'll be nothing- nothing in the world for me - nothing. I came here hoping against hope for sympathy and help. Emily is the only person who can help me. I - I can see now how foolish I was to hope at all..." (Wyndham 71, 72) David thinks about his mother, and how she reacts to this situation, which had a negative impact on David. Later on David could not stop thinking about Aunt Harriet after the incidence, “For several nights I dreamed of Aunt Harriet lying

Both these things results in David asking many questions. David takes an interest in this girl and does many things to meet her. He goes out of his way just to make time for her, but the question is why. It could be that he truly likes her, however if this is true then how come this is so sudden. He has hated deviations his

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

African Americans have to strive extremely hard to be successful and obtain a place in America. When reading Baldwin’s statement it seems much like Martin Luther King Jr. statement: “One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land”(3). African Americans are trying to obtain their place in American society but are restricted to the area that the white Americans set aside for them. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin are striving to make a difference to better America by publicly sharing their emotions.

However, “How can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not want, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should?”(96) Baldwin is saying that America could be a leading nation in ethics and transform other nations much like how the constitution has impacted other governments also. When something is proven real or obtainable and not a façade people begin to want to reach for that reality or object. If American was able to realize its true potential then many nations would want to realize that potential also. Developed and under-developed nations would take note of the possibilities of government now that they have America to look to as an honest example of the possibilities of human interaction and

Baldwin continues on and says that blacks were being oppressed everywhere. “…Negro girls who set upon a white girl in the subway because…she was stepping on their toes. Indeed she was, all over the nation” (73). Not only does this portray the ever growing tension felt among African Americans in a certain area, it expresses the tension felt across the nation. African Americans everywhere were still continuously looked down upon, causing agitation, which was the current social condition blacks and whites faced.

his father and dead mother. David's father has an idealized vision of his son as