ENGL-154
Paper #2
Aarthi Ramesh

‘David’s Un-Happy Ending’

Loneliness is a central theme governing the interactions of the characters pertaining to the novel, Giovanni’s Room. David’s words are a source of wisdom for why loneliness so frequently follows the actualization of love. He says, “With this fearful intimation there opened in me a hatred for Giovanni which was as powerful as my love and which was nourished by the same roots” (p 84). Baldwin perhaps is trying to hint at the thin line separating what we perceive as love from that which we perceive as hate. Similarly, we can identify these components within the pages of Baldwin’s novel.

In David, we find a most emphatically unpleasant and disagreeable protagonist; he is often seen as unsympathetic, and almost cruel. Yet, depictions such as, “I felt sorrow and shame and panic and great bitterness” paint a picture of an individual to whom, we must all admit to being able to relate. This stylistic quality, noted by its use of subtlety and skill of realistic depiction of certain elements of personality that are irrefutably universal, and consequently human, betrays a prose that is characteristically, and uniquely, Baldwin.

Such being the case, we find in David, a protagonist who is simultaneously intriguing and reprehensible; the consequence of which is an engaging narrative of self-discovery. This curious dichotomy of emotions that David’s character evokes within the reader may be telling of a deeper correlation; a contention best supported by conclusions drawn from the analysis of a scene in which David describes the night during which he first meets Giovanni. By way of his own inner monologue, David reveals to the reader his acutely emotional reaction to the overtly feminine bar-boy he meets:

“People said that he was very nice, but I confess that his utter grotesqueness made me uneasy; perhaps in the same way that the sight of monkey eating their own excrement turns some people’s stomachs. They might not mind so much if monkeys did not – so grotesquely – resemble human beings” (pg. 27).

David’s instant repugnance to the noticeably feminine bar boy is evidence of a deeper insecurity regarding his own masculinity. The satire that permeates the scene hints at its’ possibility as an implicit insert of Baldwin’s moral authority: “Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy”. The quote continues, “The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality” and represents an explicit assertion of one the novel’s more pervasive themes.

IN drawing a parallel between the implications of David’s response on his personality to the possible implications the readers’ response to David has to our collective personality, which can be aggregately termed as ‘the human condition’, I would argue that James Baldwin, sends his reader a much broader message. Baldwin invites the reader to ask not, how does David reach his unhappy conclusion? But rather, why is he incapable of reaching a happy one? David’s conclusion can be used as an explanation and/or response to the nagging fear and associated self-doubt concerning the achievability of the respective happy ending, present within each of us.

Baldwin’s message rings clear as one that encourages the individual to use his/her distinctive cognitive capabilities to comprehend the existence of certain universal truths that permeate the human condition; the acceptance of which, necessitates compassion as a means towards a more peaceful world order. This message that is reinforced again and again, using the voices of the characters comprising the world of Giovanni’s room, but is perhaps best summarized using the words of one of the novel’s lesser characters: “Not many people have ever died of love, but multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour, for the lack of it” (p 106).