Theme Of Giovanni's Room

The association of homosexuality with filth begins in childhood for David and most certainly in his relationship with his father. His identity confusion can be seen from early on as he mentions: “I was in full flight from him. I did not want him to know me. I did not want anyone to know me” (Baldwin 16). Indeed, David’s father install in him from the very beginning the notion of a white, heterosexual, masculine American male. He wants his son, whom he addresses as “Butch” to “grow up to be a man” (90) and not “a Sunday school teacher” (15). The “teacher” to which his father refers to can be understood as a threat to masculinity because “the teacher” is almost surely a woman and he wishes only a life of “butch” for his son. This notion surfaces

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.

Throughout the entire movie we can see that David is the character that changes the most. David is portrayed as a nerdy and lazy teen that spends all his time watching the show pleasantville and eating junk food. The director shows us that his life at home is not really good and his only escape is while watching pleasantville. When he gets teleported into the show and town Pleasantville he’s stuck in the traditional way of living there, not changing anything and constantly worrying about his sister Jennifer altering the entire town. His fear of change sprouts with the worry of the disturbances his sister will create. In this circumstance the power of fear leads him to be controlling of the situations. We can see this how he tries to control the change when he finds out Mary Sue has been intimate with Skip and this creates a domino effect for

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

David spends the first two chapters eavesdropping into the conversations of his mother and father. This way of finding information in itself is very juvenile but is the only way. Because of the eavesdropping, the information David hears is interfered by his childish ways for example “part of me said to leave, get away, run now before it’s too late before you hear something you can’t unhear.” This quote displays David’s naïve thinking. The naivety of David is also shown though his feeling towards his Uncle Frank, he sees Frank as the charming, town doctor and loving uncle. In David’s eyes, Frank can do no wrong, and when he does, he along with his father does not believe the allegations, “why are you telling me this” “are you telling me this because I’m Frank’s brother? Because I’m your husband? Because I’m Maries employer? He paused “or because I’m the

James Baldwin’s novel, Giovanni’s Room, follows the protagonist, David, as he embarks on a self-journey to establish an identity, personal and sexual, for himself. David is trapped in an American ideal of masculinity and homosexuality that does not define who he truly is, a homosexual male. David tries to pull away from his true desires and constantly struggles to embrace the heteronormative American life instead of being honest and accepting his true self. Throughout the entire novel, David associates darkness, filth and containment with homosexuality, queerness and different spaces that represent sin. Towards the end of the novel, at the end of his self-journey, David, although not literally contained or confined to Giovanni’s room or other dark spaces, does not truly resolve his issues with his true identity and internally will never truly be free.

As I transitioned from elementary school to middle school, I have always heard about everyone trying to fit in. For me, I too have experienced trying to fit in. While others tried to fit in by buying the trendiest clothes, listening to the latest music or playing the newest games, I thought I could fit in by just going along with everything people said. However, because of this, in the long run, I began to lose myself.

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,

Fitting in can be a major challenge for anyone in life. It is hard to stay true to yourself, while also fitting in. In the novel The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman, a young girl named Honor struggled with this major challenge of fitting in. She kept isolating herself from her classmates. Fitting in is also a major theme in the short story “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. The main character Margot is a young girl who was very different than her classmates. She was teased for her differences because she remembered something her classmates didn’t remember, and she can’t let go of this memory. Allegra Goodman and Ray Bradbury both develop the theme of fitting in in their novels;

Sophie allows for doubt to pierce its way into David’s life for the first time. At the start of the novel, when David first meets Sophie, he gets an insight into a deviant’s life. She has proven to be the first blow to efficiently impact David’s thoughts and make him question the authenticity of his society’s belief system. “It is hind-sight that enables me to fix that as the day when my first small doubts started to germinate.”

gay, he constantly struggles to find a way to make himself believe that he is a

David's inauthenticity leaves him always feeling unsatisfied. He doesn't belong anywhere, not amongst heterosexual or homosexual. Everywhere he's a stranger. I truly believe that David knew deep down inside what needed to be done to finally become happy, but he also knew that this was a decision he could not live with. If there was such a thing as a pill to make him be the man his father wanted him to be, David would have taken it in a heartbeat. He wished to be apart of the American dream where he worked to support his good lady and their four delightful children as they lived happily ever after. Unfortunately, he did not

seemed as if fate was handing David the passion and desire he lacked in life.

Though David represents a seemingly common boy at the time, he has several qualities that make him stand out. However, these character traits are never simply told to us. Instead, the implied author uses David’s actions, decisions, and beliefs to

David also sees himself as having a great deal of influence on others and prides himself on that fact. When David was walking along the street with a coworker, a girl mistook him for a celebrity and David found it amusing to play along. David’s narration describes that the coworker was not amused by this joke and “avoided [David] for the next six months” (DeLillo 2.14). Once David sees the influence his appearance and pride could have on one coworker, he believes that he