Giovanni's Room: An Exploration of Sexuality and Race

Jan 24, 2023

ABSTRACT

This extended essay is an investigation of the approach Baldwin utilizes through exhibiting the influence of sexuality and race on the protagonist David in his novel, Giovanni's Room. The conducted research on the text reveals a common interpretation which argues the inherent blackness of the characters which are otherwise not explicitly described as black by Baldwin. A rigorous inspection of these elements on account of the terms "whiteliness" (Frye) and abjection in reference to sexuality (Kristeva) - referring to the positions of race and sexuality within a heteronormative white society - exposes the invalidation of aforementioned arguments through the exploration of the terms which Baldwin uses to juxtapose events and descriptions. An understanding of the notion of whiteliness is henceforth useful in examining his role as the white man throughout the novel, portraying the subjugation of his homosexual counterparts through his racialized descriptions of the characters Giovanni and Joey. Subsequently, a justification for the racialized narration of these characters will be proposed through examining the instability of David's sexual identity, using the concepts of abjection and straightliness in order to conclude with an effective characterization of the protagonist.

INTRODUCTION

James Baldwin's inability to fulfill his legacy as the Negro writer (the unavoidable responsibility of depicting the black experience) was followed with disappointment and surprise from the critics, either rejecting Giovanni's Room entirely (as his publishers did), or interpreting it in ways which incorporates race, framing it as an innate factor Baldwin was unable to escape from. Thus, most contemporary critics have untangled this work through the context of Baldwin's blackness through the social alienation felt with condemnation of the two estranged identities: the black man, and the homosexual. This essay will examine both the conditions of the external environment of the author and the work produced to thoroughly inspect the association race holds with sexuality, in respect to the interpretations which offer a complementary relationship between the two issues.

Giovanni's Room is a series of confessions from David, narrated rather nostalgically: he begins by explaining his childhood and his relationship with his dad and his first encounter with a boy, describing the shame he felt after being with him. The reader is then introduced to David's friends in Paris, following his decision to abandon America and his father. David begins a secret, intimate but isolated relationship with Giovanni, whom he meets in a bar, while also being engaged to an American woman, Hella, who shortly after discovers David's relationship with Giovanni and leaves him. The story is met with a harsh end when David deserts Giovanni, who, later on, is executed for murdering the bar owner for attempting to sexually assault him.

MAIN BODY

I – WHITELINESS

Whiteliness is a term coined by Marilyn Frye, in which she distinguishes the biological condition of whiteness from the "social/political category, a category that is persistently maintained by those people who are, in their own and each other's perception, unquestionably in it." Thus, it proves a useful term for the divide between race as a social identity and as a biological state of being, comparing being white to compulsorily being a member of a club which rationalizes its existence with exclusion, colonization and a show of privilege that its members cannot escape from (Frye, p. 116).

Giovanni's Room immediately draws an association to race, through the narration in the opening passage: David characterizes his race, both in its biological and social state, as the primary descriptor of his person: "... my blond hair gleams" (Baldwin, 1957 p. 9), "My face is like a face you have seen many times" (9), "My ancestors conquered a continent, pushing across death-laden plains (...)" (9) all encompass his recognition of his own identity, the crushing weight of whiteliness as a compulsory identity which he is constantly reminded of, and aware of. He begins these descriptions with a literal reference to his "reflection" as he studies his image on the window, suggesting that his white features are the most prominent upon discerning an image of himself, and are the ones that reflect his being and mirror his identity. Such an introduction draws attention to race as a significant motif within the novel, placing emphasis on race as an important signifier of identity.

As the novel progresses, the reader learns that France is the destination of David's past self, as he begins to reminisce about his life, in which Baldwin draws an association between his Paris and David's. For it is true that David had decided to flee to France in order to find himself (24), and Baldwin reflects his life in Paris onto David, portraying the condition of exile and a sense of estrangement that comes with contrasting identities. Nevertheless, a subtle contrast is made throughout his novel between the author and the character, as Baldwin's reasons for exile, one of pivotal racial struggle, differs strongly than of the white American man, who had escaped his comfort and solace in order to discover the self he had not lost. The interpretations of the novel that take the parallels between David's social alienation and Baldwin's the desire to perhaps, be "beautiful", through the white skin. ignores the juxtaposition made through the comparison between David and Baldwin's life. Distinguished throughout the novel, the reader observes that ultimately, these alleged autobiographical parallels fall short, justified with the blackness of Baldwin in contrast to the whiteness of his characters, blissfully ignoring the dissimilarities between the author and the character that shape the novel. In opposition to this, Stephanie Li suggests an interpretation in which she states that Baldwin had displayed the hypocrisy of whiteness through David's refusal of his own history and identity. (Li, 2014 p. 132)

RACIALIZATION THROUGH NARRATION

Unraveled throughout his remembrances of his childhood, David confesses his first affair with a boy, Joey, whom he describes as "dark" (Baldwin, 1957 p. 11), with multiple references to descriptions of non-white features: "... his curly hair darkening the pillow" (13), "Joey's body was brown," (13) - subsequently feeling a threat to his manhood (13); through the symbolism of Joey's darkened body transforming into "the black opening of a cavern in which I would be tortured till madness came" (13). David's realization of the emergence of this threat to his own masculinity begins with the awareness of the masculinity the dark skinned body which lay beside him carries: he first describes Joey as 'innocent' and resembling a baby (13), descriptions associated with femininity, purity and gentleness. With a sharp awareness that wakes him to a nightmarish apprehension of the intense masculinity the dark body in front of him carries, he feels an urgent threat to his manhood. Reddy describes this immediate fear through "the fantasy of purity - racial or sexual - leads to anxiety about one's actual impurity being uncovered." concluding that the "purity must constantly be defended, the impurity constantly suppressed in order to maintain social superiority." Thus, Baldwin poses Joey's masculinity as a threat, embodying the savagery of the hypothetically dark skinned man, and the hypocrisy of such hypermasculinity to be lowered down to the vulnerability of the feminine through this sexual act. Consequently, as Kaja Silverman has observed, distinguishing the black male from its white counterpart through viewing him as merely a sexual object (on the basis of the black man's hyperbolic penis, as she puts it) "places the white man on the side of "less" rather than "more," and, so, threatens to erase the distinction between him and the white woman." Therefore, the threat David is faced with (influenced by the social structures built primarily on upholding the white man's masculinity) is his description of Joey as a dark masculine male, who has, through the expression of his sexuality, removed the barriers between him and the white woman, and with doing so, has encouraged the already insecure manhood within David to blossom.

Nevertheless, Baldwin does not specify Joey's alleged blackness through a specified referent akin to David's descriptions of himself (Baldwin, 1957 p.9). Stephanie Li goes as far as to ascribe whiteness to him, proving this through her extensive analysis of the context and of David's descriptions of Joey. She states that it is near unimaginable for a dark-skinned boy from the 1950s to have comfortably whistled at passerby girls on the beach (Baldwin, 1957 p. 11) without the fear of "...the rage and disgust of onlookers who might wish to remind a black boy his proper place," (Li, 2014 p. 138) What would be concluded from such an analysis, is that David has mirrored his fear of the alienated other (an act of overt homosexuality) through his narration onto Joey's naked body, by using descriptors implying blackness. What frightens him, however, is not Joey's blackness (as critics have argued for the characters to have simply been black characters in whiteface or performing "racial drag" ) but Joey's white naked body resembling David's. Homosexuality cannot be attributed to his own, pure and white body - so he transforms Joey's naked skin to a hitherto antagonized subject: a dark stranger.

Furthermore, observed throughout the novel, there are multiple instances where David and Giovanni find themselves in some sort of cultural conflict - when Giovanni is first introduced, it is obvious to David and Jacques that he does not speak English (Baldwin, 1957 p. 30) and this becomes the first impression of him to David. He finds Giovanni a complete stranger to his language (and extensively - his culture), as their argument about whether Paris is more preferable to New York transforms into a new debate which Giovanni ignites against Americans (34). 'After all, you are all merely emigrants. And you did not leave Europe so very long ago.' David takes a strong offense which he tries to conceal, although the argument progresses as Giovanni seems persistent on his snide remarks against Americans. (35) An interesting aspect of this conversation is the evident defensiveness in his whiteness that he seems eager to protect - one that does not at all mirror his "hidden" blackness but one that displays the sheer white guilt behind his knowledge (9) of the atrocities committed by his race. The most common interpretation of the novel can thus be introduced using David's internal guilt: cleaning Giovanni's room is a result of David's rejection of Giovanni's characteristics, and his inability to accept the nature of their relationship. Hence, although it represents David attempting to cleanse his homosexuality, it also embodies his role as the white man in which he comfortably strives to erase and redefine what he rules as the stranger. Li notes that the redefining and the erasure of history is most evident through David's depiction of Giovanni's death (Li, 2014 p. 147) since the white narrator brings upon himself the responsibility retell it, a narrative that frames him as the rape victim (of a man by a man), in which power dynamics take place through the assertance of raciality rather than sex. Baldwin assures the reader that David's narration is unreliable through explicitly portraying Giovanni as a passerby that David often ran into (Baldwin, 1957 p. 129), conflicting with David's retelling of his death, which describes the event so intricately; as if one was closely intimate with the victim to have predicted the sequence of events so accurately. He begins with a justification for his assumptions, constructing a narrative where Giovanni is deprived and feeble, (134) in a state without le jeune Américain (young American). Giovanni's weakness is juxtaposed with Guillaume's strength - one that builds upon his French origins (131), exposing his whiteness and place of higher authority with the statement that his name, after the incident of his death, became "(...) a symbol of French manhood."(131); thus, resulting in a powerful predator, capable of taking advantage of his position. Giovanni, in contrast, is an Italian immigrant of lesser authority, which supports the depiction of an unbalance in power dynamics that is further encouraged with the racialization of the characters through David's point of view.

If one were to break down the sequence of events as they are described by David, it would be thoroughly observed that there lays an inconsistency (Li, 2014 p. 164) between Giovanni’s reaction to his past assault which had not led to a any act of violence (Baldwin, 1957 p. 94) and one so ferocious that it leads to Guillaume's death with Giovanni's bare hands, implying great strength capable of preventing the assault from occurring initially. Then, it could be fair to conclude from David's retelling, that Giovanni's temper had not been in response to Guillaume's rejection in offering Giovanni a job, but to the sexual assault he had experienced; which proves to be contradictory to past events that state Giovanni's willingness to exchange sex due to his desperation for money. Hence, as Li states, "David ignores these more pressing class dynamics in order to emphasize Giovanni’s sexual humiliation." (164) and places Giovanni in a racialized, subjugated role, robbing him of a voice. The hegemonized subject is forced into a racialized identity through his depiction as a vicious character in response to a sexual assault, and David declares that Giovanni's true identity is uncovered with this act (Baldwin, 1957 p. 135).

Contrary to what Li states, a revelation is indeed made with this narration, exposing a truth about David's perception of Giovanni rather than a revealed plain-spoken account of him. It is exposed to the reader, with this final act of violence, and David's attempt to erase and rewrite history, that he is externalizing his fears through projecting them upon Giovanni. "Why was too black for the newspapers to carry," (133) the privileged white man speaks, referring to an incident which he narrates on his own account.

II – SEXUAL ABJECTION

Abjection is a concept in psychoanalytic theory which is built upon and developed by Julia Kristeva, referring to the sense of terror unleashed with the collapse of the boundaries between the subject and the other. As Robert Philip states, abjection is "(...) the process by which identificatory regimes exclude subjects that they render unintelligible or beyond classification," that in turn, force to preserve the normative confines which are endangered with the arrival of the object. As Kristeva suggests, the abject is characterized through, for instance, the expulsion of the emotion of disgust when one lays eye on a corpse, the lifeless but human body which signifies neither death or life, but which borrows characteristics from both.

David's heterosexual Self does not exist without the image of abjection, where he recognizes and rejects the boundaries between the subject and the archaic object, marking his trustworthy subjectivity as a man. Baldwin uses a recurring theme in which he juxtaposes cleanliness and dirtiness to symbolize (heterosexual) whiteness and (dark) homosexuality, most evidently seen in the passage where Giovanni cries out his frustration with David's desire to be "clean" (Baldwin, 1967 p. 123), declaring: "You think you came here covered with soap (...) and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime." (123) The novel draws a line in between the notions of purity and dirt from the beginning, as David indeed struggles with maintaining his cleanliness in order to protect himself from the feeling of disgust, through escaping the "abject", the boundaries that reach towards the homosexual identity. He convinces himself that his affiliations with his homosexual peers are entirely out of need (25), attempting to isolate himself from the homosexual non-subjects (Reid-Pharr, 1996 p. 390) in order to create and reassure his heterosexual identity.

STRAIGHTLINESS AND THE ABJECT

Contrasted with whiteliness, Maureen T. Reddy invents a complementary concept that she calls "straightliness", in which normative heterosexuality is seen as a compulsory identity, where, similarly, the subject rationalizes its existence through the exclusion of the other. (Reddy, 1998, p. 58) She argues that, in juxtaposition to whiteliness, straightliness can be learned and unlearned, and that it is a notion which asserts itself through the presence of "straightly" values. The subject is therefore not necessarily heterosexual (although it can be), but holds views which endorse the heterosexual norm (58). David is a grand example of this condition, since he constructs an identity which attempts to reject and uphold straightliness.

To examine this further, one must take into consideration the characterization of David's father - an epitome of the heterosexual American man - who brings David a sense of discomfort and estrangement, stating that his frank masculinity "exhausted and appalled," (Baldwin, 1957 p. 20) him. Moreover, David continues, he states that he wishes he did not have to witness nor acknowledge that his father's flesh was as "unregenerate" as his own (20), a complaint which validates the hatred he feels for the sexed body of the father, proving David's views of sexuality and sex as recalcitrant and obsinate. The loathing felt towards the father figure as the crucial symbol of heterosexuality concludes David's alienation from his own heterosexuality. Hence, David does not stand within the confines of the subject, proven with his inability to accept his father's sexuality: one that is the normative example of sexuality for the adolescent boy. Additionally, David's inability to assert his heterosexuality causes him to reflect his fear of the sexed body of another man back onto the object of desire. There is a sense of terror that comes with his detailed descriptions which look down in dread and fright at the sexual body of another man. His manhood is detrimentally significant to the formation of his identity, as David points out in his descriptions of his relationship to Joey's body, what he compares to a dark opening of a cavern in which he would be "... tortured till madness came, in which [he] would lose [his] manhood." (14), indicating the extent of the fragility of his sexuality through equating his loss of identity with his succumb to the other. He attempts to rid his homosexual counterparts of this lack of manhood, characterized by mud and darkness, bringing them closer within the boundaries, as if he is attempting to prove that it is, indeed, possible to reorganize order, to adopt a normative identity, to cleanse and be cleansed. Therefore, the sole justification of his heterosexuality is then his female fiancee, Hella, whom he presents as proof for his sexuality multiple times throughout the novel (123).

Consequently, he faces a dilemma: if heterosexuality makes him uncomfortable, does he, then, belong with the other?

With Giovanni's arrival, David's identity begins to lack clear stability. The reader observes David's futile attempts to maintain his alleged heterosexuality, which constitues asserting his straightliness, seen most evidently in the beginning of the novel, with David's refusal to approach Giovanni himself in order to prevent the "confusion" due to the fear of being mistaken as a homosexual (32). Still, David finds himself engaging in the relationship he begins to form with Giovanni, one that is only allowed to exist within the confines of the untidy room, a place which is consistently in the process of becoming. The process itself is a metaphor for David's state of being - he does not fit as the subject nor the other, but he is merely a "vehicle of the abject" (Reid-Pharr, 1996 p. 391), in the process of transcending his subjectivity to reach otherness, offering him the freedom to continue to reject or embrace it simultaneously. Nonetheless, this transcendence never occurs, as he abandons Giovanni, leaving both to embrace their state within the boundaries of the unfinished room. For David, this results in the eruption of his sexual instability through his affair with a sailor which is uncovered by his fiancee Hella, who deserts him (Baldwin, 1996 p. 141) - thus, the final signifier of his heterosexuality is renounced, and his sole alternative becomes the necessity to embrace otherness.

Notwithstanding, the ending is filled with the stark ambiguity and uncertainty of David's own personhood, contrasting these emotions of doubt with the confidence which radiates in the beginning of the novel. Eventually, he admits his process towards the confines of the other, using words which imply impurity to describe it: "... the journey to corruption is, always, already, half over." he says, "Yet, the key to my salvation, which cannot save my body, is hidden in my flesh." (146)

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, Baldwin produces an exploration of race and sexuality centered around and narrated by the white heterosexual protagonist, offering the dilemma of social alienation through the lens of the privileged American. Through the perspective of the white narrator, Baldwin displays the underlying racism in which subjugated subjects are racialized solely for their lesser positions as an outlet for his white guilt, shown in David's descriptions of Joey, his first homosexual encounter, and Giovanni, the culturally dissimilar stranger with the foul, sexually compliant body. For the white man, blackness is therefore directly associated with savagery and strength as a result of sexual deviance and humiliation, shown in David's desire to rid Giovanni's room of dirt, and his fabrication of a narrative in which Giovanni is assaulted and humiliated, forced into the role of a victimized subject which reacts ferociously and mercilessly towards this humiliation.

Baldwin utilizes cleanliness and dirt prove as useful distinctions for the notions of purity and corruption, in which the other, previously established through racialization and thus characterized by "dirt", is continuously and intensely rejected in order to maintain and reassure David's identity. The instability and disbelonging of his sexuality is, however, revealed from the very beginning, through his apparent disgust towards both the normative heterosexuality of his father and the homosexual other. This conflict is symbolized with the never-ending process of cleaning Giovanni's room, placing him within the boundaries between the subject and the other, confined in neither. Though it seems that with the abandonment of his fiancee, David is forced to surrender to his personhood as the racialized, sexed body of the other; he is rather shown to be still contemplating and questioning his identity, validating the continuation of his process towards the boundaries of the other.

- Ghazal Al-Hasan

migrant caster of shadows

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