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Giovanni's room6/4/2023 During a sleepover, the boys kissed and engaged in various sexual activities, and though David enjoyed this, he was unable to face Joey the next morning. He explains that he spent the majority of his time one summer with a friend named Joey. In this way, Baldwin illustrates the dangers of lying to oneself, ultimately suggesting that denial and self-deception hurt both the people who hide their true selves and the individuals with whom they’re dishonest.ĭavid’s unwillingness to acknowledge his sexual orientation surfaces early in the novel, when he rehashes a short-lived boyhood romance. Because the damage has already been done to his relationship with Giovanni, though, David finds himself alone and miserable at the end of the novel. Before long, though, it becomes impossible for him to pose as a straight man, effectively alienating him from Hella. As a result, he eventually leaves Giovanni for his girlfriend Hella, whom he deceives by pretending to be a heterosexual man. In particular, David-the novel’s protagonist-denies that he’s attracted to men, and this denial causes him to resent people like Giovanni, whom he loves but can’t bring himself to fully embrace. A novel about a closeted American man living in Paris in the 1950s, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room underscores the many miseries of denying one’s true sexual orientation.
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