What is the most important word in the novel, and why?
What is the most important passage in the novel, and why?
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What is the most important word in the novel, and why?
What is the most important passage in the novel, and why?
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The word that stood out to me the most in Giovanni’s Room”was ‘drinking.’ Much of the novel takes place around alcohol, whether it be at Guillaume’s bar, or while David himself is drinking alone in his rented living space. The character’s intoxicated state throughout the novel is an indication that they are unable to truly accept themselves or their circumstances when sober – that they must turn to an altered state to experience each other and cope with the difficulties of nonconformity. The chronological structure of the novel adds to this effect, jumping back in time sporadically as David recalls Giovanni’s room and processes his role in Giovanni’s placement on death row. In particular, this creates a sort of blurred narrative as David retells his story, lapsing in and out of consciousness as he understands his regret and grief.
I found the passage spanning pages 81 and 82 to be the most significant, as it is when David and Giovanni fully acknowledge that their relationship and what they experience together is labeled as “dirty.” While both characters felt a sense of shame in their queerness (David shamefully recounts his encounters with Joey at the beginning of the novel), these lines mark their first conversation on the topic, and really shows both of their fear – for Giovanni both in losing David and in being open about his feelings. Though this story was arguably already tragic as Giovanni’s death is explored early on, this passage is the first place the deeper sadness the character’s feel towards their situation is voiced, and it is crushing for David.
The most important passage in the book is David’s conversation with Jaques on pages 56-57, where Jacques says that David will be like him if he never has a meaningful relationship. While at this point we know that his relationship with Giovanni is going to and badly, we don’t know exactly how or why. This conversation, because it forced David to recognize how he feels toward Giovanni, becomes the foundation for their relationship. Unlike the relationships with men he has had in the past, this one involves real emotional attachment. That’s the only reason we can be invested in a book about their relationship.
The most important word in this book, in my opinion, is “shameful”. It appears in that same passage but is also a running theme throughout. David, although he dislikes his life with Hella, tries to fit himself into his idea of a moral life. He’s ashamed of his relationship with Giovanni, but he’s also ashamed in general: he is ashamed that he’s gay, he’s ashamed of his friends and there people he hangs around with, he’s ashamed of being American and not being masculine enough. It’s his shame that ends both of his relationships, and because he’s ashamed, he’s not able to commit to either part of his life.
The most important word in the novel is “love.” In American culture, love is seen as a magical goal that all people should aspire to. The heteronormativity of our culture also programs us to believe that love comes in a very specific form; between a man and a woman who both follow prescribed gender roles. This book is all about how David follows these roles but is left fundamentally unsatisfied with them, so when discussions of love arise, it causes the reader to wonder if David actually loves anyone. The first time the word love is mentioned, it is in regard to David’s first love, Joey. He says “It seemed, then, that a lifetime would not be long enough for me to act with Joey the act of love.” This is in sharp contrast to the end of the book, where he says “Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love.” The word ‘love’ is used throughout the book to remind us of our cultural perceptions of love and also to highlight how the intolerance of our cultural understanding of love has shifted David from a loving person to a cold one.
The most important passage in the novel comes right at the end. Baldwin writes:
“I long to make this prophecy come true. I long to crack that mirror and be free. I look at my sex, my troubling sex, and wonder how it can be redeemed, how I can save it from the knife. The journey to the grave is already begun, the journey to corruption is, always, already, half over. Yet, the key to my salvation, which cannot save my body, is hidden in my flesh.”
There is so much to discuss about this passage because it sums up the struggle that Baldwin’s character faces in the book. David is constantly at war with his body, his body’s urges, and how they contrast with what he perceives his soul is. He seeks salvation and attempts to obtain it through Hella, but in fact, the key to salvation, or happiness, is within himself. However, he cannot find that key, because he is too disgusted with his own body to go looking. He spends the book in a self-hating limbo and it is assumed that is how he will spend the rest of his life because he cannot get over his own internalized homophobia.
When considering the one word that exemplifies the many facets of this novel, I keep coming back to “contempt”; This word is the driving force that impacts every one of Henry’s relationships and interactions, including his contempt for men who don’t perform masculinity “correctly”, his self-contempt for his own perceived lacking in masculinity, and his contempt for Giovanni for NOT feeling the same.
While many passages are significant for the text on whole, I found that one of the very last, on page 163, stood out to me the most:
“I wish, anyway,” I said at last, “that you’d believe me when I say that, if I was lying, I wasn’t lying to *you*.”
She turned toward me with a terrible face. “I was the one you were talking to. *I* was the one you wanted to come with you to this terrible house in the middle of nowhere. I was the one you said you wanted to marry!”
“I mean,” I said, “I was lying to myself.”
“Oh,” said Hella. “That makes everything different, of course.”
“I only mean to say,” I shouted, “that whatever I’ve done to hurt you, I didn’t mean to do!”
“Don’t shout,” said Hella. “I’ll be gone soon. Then you can shout it to those hills out there. Shout it to those peasants, how guilty you are, how you love to be guilty!”
This whole conversation encapsulated the impact that Henry’s actions, all his inner turmoil and self-discovery that he does throughout the novel, had real consequences for the people around him. For him, the admittance that he was lying to himself the whole time feels like an impactful, emotional moment that is in a way satisfying or relieving, but for Hella it meant nothing because the end result was the same. Henry has the privilege to be able to confront and dwell on these inner conflictions, with little regard for the way it destroys the people around him.
The word I found the most important is “dirty”. Throughout David’s journey with his sexuality, he describes many of the men at the bar as dirty and has a personal obsession with having a “clean” body which he achieves through mental manipulation. Giovanni’s room which is also described as dirty puts David in a constant state of uncleanliness and far away from his ideals; being gay to him is to be dirty and that tortures him. When the final chapter describes Giovanni’s execution, he describes Giovanni’s body as dirty as well as living in a dirty world. David’s goal throughout the book is to make himself clean and he manipulates Joey, Hella, and Giovanni playing on their emotions as he grows to hate them as a way to make himself feel better.
The most important passage I felt is on page 57 where Jacques tells David to love Giovanni. “And if you think of them as dirty- they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty; you can give each other something which will make both of you better- forever- if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.” This advice given early on is a reflection of how David could have chosen to look at the world. Because he thinks of sex and love as dirty David is deeply constrained by his own mind. This passage follows after David has cut contact with Joey and before he cuts contact with Giovanni showing how his inability to accept love as anything but dirty brings him to a state of loneliness and isolation by the end. It also shows how everyone around him, both his lovers and spectators, knew David was incapable of loving anyone.
The most important word in this novel is “lonely.” The repeated use of the term stood out to me because it is a reoccurring feeling that not only David feels, but he voices along with other characters. It feels as though addressing this isolation and loneliness they feel is a way for them to ask for help from other characters, to feel a connection and spark, even when it may not really be possible for them to connect. For example, when David is talking to Hella and she expresses how Spain is lonely and how she just wants to be with a husband who will give her children and love her. This is a direct call out to David, begging him for love and attention. Even though David previously expressed how lonely Spain is for him too (and how Paris is the opposite of that), it is not in the same way as Hella. Spain is lonely for David because there is no love and no Giovanni there. So while characters attempt to connect on this fear of loneliness, it only highlights their misconnection and their differences in what they want out of life. Furthermore, Giovanni and David spend the entire book hiding their feelings of loneliness from each other. This is because of a difference in expectations, the fact that David is uncomfortable with his sexuality, and severe lack of communication between the two. Their feelings of isolation just continue because they cannot be their true selves or have real conversations with the person they love so deeply. These feelings of loneliness are so prominent in the queer community and is so complicated in its depiction throughout the novel, so it really stood out to me.
The most important passage in the novel to me was from pages 139 to 143. A standout line is “‘Giovanni,’ I said, helplessly, ‘be careful. Please be careful.’ He gave me an ironical smile. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You should have given me that advice the night we met'” (pg. 143). This encounter between Giovanni and David is extremely emotional, especially for Giovanni. He is so raw and real, even to the point of breaking down after talking about leaving his hometown to come to Paris. Giovanni’s whole life is falling apart, and his final straw is David. He explicitly says that as well, that falling in love with a man who is too ashamed to be with him has been it for him. Giovanni begged David to stay, and David says he feels nothing for Giovanni now, even after having this affair and stringing him along. All Giovanni can do is tell David about everything that he has lost, how his life has really gotten to a point in which he feels he cannot come back from. This is the saddest moment in the novel for me because it shows how prejudice against the queer community runs so deep that it cripples people in every aspect of their lives.
To me the most important passage was on page 139 to 140. When Giovanni is talking about when he left his village, due to having an unborn son; he escaped. This passage displayed so much dimension, because throughout the whole book, we keep getting told that Giovanni has died. This passage shows a piece of him that died (mentally).
When talking about his unborn child, he mentions how he would’ve raised him to be one of the boys Jacques and Guillaume try to find at night. However, he not only mentions Jacques and Guillaume, but he also mentions David. Looping them into this group of people they both once despised.
The word I’m choosing is “shame”, which not only follows David around throughout the book, but is an undertone of him finding himself.
This feeling of shame travels with him from adolescent to Paris. On page 84 he is talking about moments with Giovanni, “I felt sorrow and shame and panic and great bitterness…The beast which Giovanni had awakened in me would never go to sleep again…”
Shame was a consistent word that described how he felt about himself, specifically speaking about his sexuality.
He describes his first time with a boy as a teenager shameful, than continues to feel constant shame when he is with Giovanni; always wanting to dissapear.
Even just looking up the definition of shame, which is “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior”
His sexuality is something he is trying to escape throughout this whole book; never wanting the the shame to catch up with him.
Giovanni makes him face this shame that he has been running from his entire life, which is one of the reasons he ran away from Giovanni.
I found the most important word in the novel to be “drunk”. A large portion of the novel takes place in Guillaume’s bar, and drinking and intoxication are running motifs that thread major plot and character developments. In Giovanni’s role as a bartender, he is a facilitator of forgetting and experiencing the world in an altered state, conflating memory and alcoholism. David drinks to ease confusion, anxiety, and discomfort surrounding his queer identity. When David and Giovanni are together, they are “drunk” in love and able to escape the judgment and injustice of the world. The surroundings are dimmed, muted, softened through inebriation, making it easier for the characters to exit harsh social constraints and allowing them brief moments of freedom and authenticity.
The passage I found to be most important in the novel spans pages 163-164 and involves Hella begging to be let in on David’s emotions and concluding that she ultimately knew that something in David’s love for her was warped. He was unjust to insulate his feelings so much with blatant disregard to how it affected others around him. Through his lying, escapism, and alcohol habits, David put up barriers that inhibited Hella to live her life, to go home, and to feel a sense of agency in her decisions. The passage reveals a culmination of the damage that David has caused in Paris and highlights the dangerous nature of living in denial. The death of Giovanni marked the death of David and Hella’s relations, but was the relationship, built on a lie, ever alive and given a chance to flourish to begin with?
The most important word in the novel to me is “falling.” Not only is the novel structured around repeated falls back in time, but the characters themselves are caught in an endless cycle of falling—falling in love, falling out of love, falling apart. David finds himself simultaneously falling in and out of love with Giovanni, while also craving to fall back into the comfort of his heterosexual relationship with Hella. Giovanni falls in love with David only for David to abandon him, leaving him to rapidly fall apart — deteriorate — until his sentence forces him to fall into the final abyss of death. Falling in its essence encapsulates the feeling of being out of control, of gravity — the uncontrollable — pushing down on you with no way to resist. Although everything that happens in the book technically happens because of the characters’ choices, it feels as though each and every event, emotion, and character is suspended in air at the mercy of some invisible force.
The most important passage in the novel to me was on page 89 in which David describes his conflicted feelings about his American identity:
“When Giovanni wanted me to know that he was displeased with me, he said I was a “vrai américain”; conversely, when delighted, he said that I was not an American at all; and on both occasions he was striking, deep in me, a nerve which did not throb in him. And I resented this: resented being called an American (and resented resenting it) because it seemed to make me nothing more than that, what that was; and I resented being called not an American because it seemed to make me nothing (89).”
Although the book explores many concepts (sexuality, identity, masculinity, desire, etc.), it is most centrally focused on the effects of expatriation — of the turmoil found in trying to make a home in a place so foreign to the home into which you were born. Paris is a character in the book, just as David or Giovanni is. It was a host that welcomed him when his own country wouldn’t, but it never truly accepted him. He never stopped being seen as an American and he found himself trapped in the label. While his inner conflict was largely due to his confusion about his sexuality, this confusion stemmed from the heterosexual lens through which he was taught to see the world as an American, the lens which made it impossible for him to truly commit to his relationship with Giovanni. In moving to France, he was trying to escape the limitations of America, yet he brought them with him, within himself.
I found the most important word in the novel to be “escape”. Throughout the novel, Baldwin explores themes of escapism. David, the narrator, is always trying to find an escape whether it be from Giovanni’s room, his relationship with Hella, or even his sexuality and manhood. In the end, he is never satisfied as he always is running away from inevitable feelings. For David to escape Giovanni he had to be with Hella and for David to be free of Hella he found comfort in Giovanni. The theme of escapism is found through David’s interpersonal relationships. In addition, David needs to travel. He left the United States to find something more, once he spent time in Paris and had been with Giovanni he again had a desperate need to leave. At times, David does not understand himself why he has this desire to run away or dismiss his true self, it has become a habit of himself.
The passage that was the most important was: “Before and beside me and all over the room, towering like a wall–” (Baldwin 135). Throughout this long passage, David comes to acknowledge what it means to be a part of Giovanni’s life. Baldwin conveys, “But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.” (Baldwin 135). This is the first time David starts to realize how damaging allowing himself to be with Giovanni would be. Giovanni’s unhealthy way of living stemmed from a dark place of grief and hatred for the world around him. David understood what Giovanni wanted of him and it made him question his masculinity. In that resort, David had to inquire to himself if he wanted to follow that road, a path men were not allowed to go down.
The most important word in Giovanni’s Room is “manhood.” This text deals heavily with themes of masculinity and sexuality, particularly highlighting how they influence each other. Baldwin’s use of the term “manhood” inextricably ties it to straightness, emphasizing the association most have between heterosexuality and masculinity. Both David and Jacques refer to David’s homosexuality as the loss of his “manhood,” insinuating that having an attraction to men as a man is feminine and cowardly. David’s struggle throughout the book is so deeply intertwined with his acceptance of his sexuality, and it is especially difficult because he ties it to his manhood. The prevalent idea that masculinity is related to sexuality has kept him from being able to acknowledge his attraction to men.
The most significant passage in Giovanni’s Room is too long for me to quote here, but it describes David’s encounter with Sue. I found this section particularly important: “I thought, Well, let her have it for Christ sake, get it over with; then it was ending and I hated her and me, then it was over, and the dark, tiny room rushed back. And I wanted only to get out of there” (100). While it may seem strange that this section describes David’s relationship with a woman when a central theme in the book is his homosexuality, that is precisely what makes it so critical. In this tragic scene, David is having sex with Sue in a desperate attempt to recover some of the dignity he feels he lost in his affair with Giovanni. In forcing himself to undergo such an uncomfortable experience, he hopes to gain a sense of masculinity and power that he is stripped of through his attraction to men. This passage speaks to the entanglement of manliness and heterosexuality, as well as its intersection with misogyny, as David believes that overpowering is a woman is the only thing that can make him truly a man.
The most important word in this novel is “home.” Throughout the text, David struggles with finding his place– both physically and metaphorically. He thinks he is happy in Paris, yet is bound to other locations through interpersonal relationships: his lover, Hella, is traveling abroad in Spain (trying to find herself, a key detail) and his father writes to him from America, saying how much he misses him. However, the idea of “home” comes to full fruition through Giovanni and his recognition of its intangibility. Baldwin writes, “‘Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. . . As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home. . . You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you can never go back'” (116). This concept of home as a metaphor rather than physical place is quintessential to fully understanding the complexity of David and Giovanni’s relationship.
While Giovanni’s passage about home is a great option, the true most important passage in the novel is on page 25, about the garden of Eden and madmen/heroes. Thematically, it is central to the novel: the choice of remembering and choosing to live in one’s temptations, or to forget and try to live a false life is the main struggle for the protagonist. Throughout the rest of the novel, David grapples with his feelings toward Giovanni (what he desires) and how he thinks he should live his life (conventionally with Hella). Therefore, this passage establishes a key idea that can be traced throughout the remainder of the text.
I found the most important word in the book to be “lie”. The concept of lying was central to David’s internal struggle as he balanced his life with Giovanni and waiting for Hella to return from Spain. He seemed to think he was living a lie with both partners; when he was with Giovanni he was indulging in something “wrong” and wished to be with Hella, but when he was with Hella he longed for something more. David often complained of not feeling anything and questions whether he loves both Giovanni or Hella. Though he was caught up in his own guilt, David was unable to take action to manage or fix his situation, leaving him stuck in both relationships, and ultimately hurting all people involved.
The passage I thought was most important was: “I wanted to be inside again, with the light and safety, with my manhood unquestioned, watching my woman put my children to bed. I wanted the same bed at night and the same arms and I wanted to rise in the morning, knowing where I was. I wanted a woman to be for me a steady ground, like the earth itself, where I could always be renewed. It had been so once; it had almost been so once. I could make it so again, I could make it real” (104). This passage touches on his battle of choosing between a life with Giovanni and with Hella. This constant pull towards a typical life, one with a wife and children and stability, is in direct opposition to the unstable, perhaps more engaging life with Giovanni. He longs for a sense of comfort, though neither Giovanni nor Hella can provide this for him so he is constantly in his head about the possibilities of what his life could be like. The end of this passage illustrates his desire to take action, the sheer possibility that he could change the course of his life and make it into something that he actually wants. However, David waits throughout the entire novel for things to happen to him, instead of making things happen for himself.
The word I believe was the most important is “normal”. One of the things David is searching for throughout the novel is some sense of normality in his self-image. He is constantly struggling with desires he believes are “strange” and “out of the ordinary”, but these are contrasted with his longing to live a standard, heterosexual life that he thinks will satiate his hopes to be a normal man. Although there is no objective source as to what is “normal” and what isn’t, a part of David just wants to be accepted, and does not want to create any waves in society. So when given the option between a conventional life (being with Hella) and otherness, David chooses Hella as he believes this is what he should want. However, David’s whole journey throughout this book is a testament to how much a normal life differs from person to person, and perhaps “normal” is less of a tangible standard and more of a construct.
The passage I found most important was on page 144, “He did not smile, he was neither grave, nor vindictive, nor sad; he was still. He was waiting, I think, for me to cross that space and take him in my arms again–waiting, as one waits at a deathbed for the miracle one dare not disbelieve, which will not happen. I had to get out of there for my face showed too much, the war in my body was dragging me down. My feet refused to carry me over to him again. The wind of my life was blowing me away.”
This passage as a whole reads to me as representative of so many different types of relationships where the only thing that came between them was life itself. Often, friendships, romantic relationships, familial relationships, etc., are broken apart by people’s lives just changing for the sake of change, there is generally no vindictiveness or true hatred between people. Of course, there are exceptions, but this to me felt like a relationship where someone grew away from the other, and there was no salvaging the love they shared. In the last sentence of this passage, David refers to his life as a “wind” that was “blowing [him] away,” and for me, this is a perfect analogy of the strange and unpredictable ways that life forces us to grow and change in our relationships.
I chose “waiting” as the word that struck me as most significant in Giovanni’s Room. The entirety of James Baldwin’s novel takes place in a state of waiting. Most of the chapters conclude with David’s contemplation of what Giovanni must be experiencing leading up to his execution, creating a lasting sense of expectation and apprehension that stays with the reader even throughout the narration of prior events such as meeting Giovanni for the first time. However, in addition to existing with the reader as an overarching theme, waiting also plays a major role in moments throughout the novel, defining Baldwin’s characters and their decisions. David spends much of the novel in a state of anticipation for his fiancee Hella’s return to Paris, and even once she returns he stalls introducing her to Giovanni, which places Giovanni in the anxious position of waiting. From character interactions to the thematic progression of the novel itself, “waiting” describes so much of Baldwin’s novel.
In the same way that one refers to a titular character–for example, Jane Eyre or Harry Potter–I would call page 88 of Giovanni’s Room the “titular passage” for its lingering depiction of David’s complex relationship with Giovanni’s living quarters and in turn with Giovanni and with David’s own queerness. The passage tells a story of transformation, tumultuous emotion, and inner turmoil. It discusses David’s ability to shape not only his own life but Giovanni’s as well through the physical intersection of this rented room. David describes his emotions and Giovanni’s in conflict–the latter’s outward expression of hope and love, and his own confusion and passion turned inwards. It is this internal tension that expands to encompass David’s constant mental battle between loving Giovanni and leaving him, between “dream[ing] of the touch of hands, of Giovanni’s hands” and “I will never let him touch me again” (Baldwin 88). These are themes that carry throughout the novel: David’s perception of his impact on Giovanni’s life and his battle between Giovanni and Hella, between defiance and conformity. Thus, page 88 is a crucial description that echoes both physically and thematically through the novel.
The passage that I believe is most important to the novel is “And at moments like this I felt that we were merely enduring and committing the longer and lesser and more perpetual murder.” (118)
I felt this phrase did very well in articulating everything David feels about his relationship with Giovanni. “Enduring and committing” explains how David believes he is not only doing something wrong (committing), but is dealing with the pain caused by feelings he cannot control (enduring).
“The longer and lesser and more perpetual murder” refers to the damage the depth of their feelings (and their inevitable end) is doing both David and Giovanni, but has additional significance to the reader within the context of the book’s construction. The reader is introduced to Giovanni’s death before he even appears in the story, so it feels to them like he is dying from the moment he is introduced. In this sense, although David might be referring to “murder” within an emotional context, the readers see it as the literal death of Giovanni.