Giovanni’s Room was only his second book chronologically) there is always a moral aspect that should not only be dealt with attention, but at the same time it should be studied because there is something that escapes and was not studied as it deserved, and that is the magic of Baldwin’
literature, no matter how hard and how much attention you give it, you never get the full grasp. In David’s case it is possible to see a character that fights against personal demons, much like Gabriel in “Go Tell it on the Mountain’ and much like him, also has family problems.
It should be noted that in David’s case those identity crises would return to haunt him, especially because he refuses to accept his love life and that would cause tragedies on his life, with Giovanni killing Guillaume and being sentenced to death due to that crime, and most notably with Hella leaving David because she wants a real man. The ending of the book, however is poetic in the sense that we see David looking into a broken mirror, shades of his tormented soul filled with guilt and remorse due to Giovanni’s death, something that partially happened because of him, especially after him saying that “If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came, I wanted to die’’ (Baldwin, 1998 p.333).
Guilt is perhaps one of the most powerful feelings in the world, but not in a good way, it can drive you mad, it can make you do something stupid, or in this case, it led to someone’s death. While it cannot be the perfect antidote, especially after the problem is unsolvable (you cannot bring someone back from the death), sometimes to accept the consequences of our acts can be one minor solution, but at the same time we should move forward and try to rebuild our future and that was what happened to David in the end. He could not escape the fact that he caused Giovanni’s death (as the letter kept going back to him), but at the same time he finally knew who he really was, and decided to finally move on with his life. And that is something that affects most people; thus they could understand something regarding it. Most of the times, life does not go the way we want to, and we have to accept it, but at the same time moving forward and trying to improve it in spite of all the obstacles, and obstacles are made to be crossed not to let us be stopped by them, unfortunately David did not understood that until it was too late, hence the reason for his suffering during the novel, but not only that, he did not accept who he was, living in conflict against himself. While yes, David could accept who he was, but society also played an important role on this conflict, therefore she is the one that should get most of the blame, and sadly this does not happen only in novels. Even in modern days, society is always trying to force us to be according to their standards, either being fit, having a certain eye color or even by having to use a certain brand just because it is what some celebrities use. This also has
something to do with identity. Everything has, but society is the biggest engine regarding some people lack of self-love, the biggest reason most of people want to be something they are not just so they can fit in the society’s ideal world.
And for me that is the most valuable lesson that one can learn from reading Baldwin’s books. We must not let society tell us what is right or wrong, we must be faithful to our beliefs, which considering the world we live in nowadays is something fundamental, but more important than that, its okay to be different. Family is important, probably the most important love of them all, so they understand if you don’t want to follow their footsteps, and John is an example of that, and as David learnt, if one must leave their comfort-zone in order to be happy or accomplished, just do it
Bibliography
Abu-Lughod, Janet L. (2007). The Harlem Revolts of 1935 and 1943. In Abu-Lughod (Eds) Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. pp 128-158.
Allen, Ernest Jr. (1985). Afro-American Identity: Reflections on the Pre-Civil War Era.
Contributions in Black Studies: Vol. 7 Article 4. Available at:
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cibs/vol7/iss1/4
Baldwin, James (1947, April 12). Maxim Gorki as Artist. The Nation . -online version : www.thenation.com/article/archives/maxim-gorki-artist.
Baldwin, James (1963, October 16). A Talk To Teachers. In “Baldwin: Collected Essays” (1998, Library of America).
Baldwin, James. (1965, February 18). Speech at Cambridge University [video recording]. Harlem World Magazine. https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/harlems-james-baldwin-pin-drop-speech-cambridge-university-1965-video/
Baldwin, James (1971, January 7th). An open letter to my sister, Miss Angela Davis The New York Review. Available at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/01/07/an-open-letter-to-my-sister-miss-angela-davis/
Baldwin, James (1979, January 15). Speech at Berkeley University. C-Span. https://www.c-span.org/video/?170651-1/james-baldwin-speech
Baldwin, James (1997) Baldwin: Early Novels and Stories; Selected by Toni Morrison (Eds). The Library of America (2nd edition).
Baldwin, James (1998) Baldwin: Collected Essays; Selected by Toni Morrison (Eds). The Library of America (2nd edition).
Baldwin, James. (2014), The Last Interview. Melville House (2nd edition)
Battle, Juan J. and Bennett, Natalie D.A (2008) Piecing Together Place: Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgender Persons in Black History. In Hornsby, Alton (Eds), A companion to African American History (pp.412-445) – Blackwell.
Beau, Fly Jones (1966). James Baldwin: The Struggle for Identity. The British Journal of Sociology, 17(2), 107–121. doi:10.2307/589050.
Bennetts, Leslie. (1985, January 10th). James Baldwin reflects on ‘Go Tell it’ PBS film. New York Times. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/10/books/james-baldwin-reflects-on-go-tell-it-pbs-film.html
Brooks, Gewndolyn (1986). Today in History – August 2: James Baldwin. Library of Congress.
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/august-02/
Di Pietro, Robert J and Ifkovic, Edward. (1983). Introduction. In Ethnic Perspectives in American Literature (pp.1-14). The Modern Language Association of America.
Eldridge, Cleaver. (1999). Soul on Ice. Delta (16th Edition)
Esquire Editors (1968, July) James Baldwin how to cool it. Esquire. Re-issue online at 2017, August 2nd. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23960/james-baldwin-cool-it/
FBI Files of James Baldwin – 1963 to 1971 available at https://vault.fbi.gov/james-baldwin/James%20Baldwin%20Part%2001%20of%2002/view
Franklin, John Hope and Moss, Alfred A. Jr. (1994). From Slavery to Freedom. McGraw-Hill. Inc (7th Edition).
Harlem World Magazine (2022). The Historic Lenox Avenue, Langston Hughes called it ‘Harlem’s Heartbeat’, 1887#. https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/the-historic-lenox-avenue-langston-hughes-called-it-harlems-heartbeat-1887/
King James Bible. 2022. Thekingsbible.com
Lamons, Brent Nelson (2006). "The Internal Odyssey of Identity: James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and History." Master Dissertation, East Tennessee State University. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2234. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2234
Leeming, David. (1995). James Baldwin a Biography. Penguin Books (1st edition).
Letter of Secretary of State Robert Lansing to Pope Benedict XV August 27, 1917, quoted in Edgar E. Robinson and Victor J. West, The Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1917 (NY:
Macmillan Company, 1917, pp. 408-410.).
Lynch, Michael F. (1996). A glimpse of the Hidden God: Dialectical Vision in James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain. In T.Harris (Ed.) New Essays on Go Tell it on the Mountain (pp.29-58).
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
McWhirter, Camero. (2011). Red summer: the summer of 1919 and the awakening of Black America. Henry Holt and Company.
Morrison, Toni (2008). a mercy. Knopf.
Moore, R. (Producer and Director). (1964). Take this Hammer (Documentary). KQED-TV. United States
Mullen, Bill V. (2019) James Baldwin: Living in Fire. Pluto Press
Natividad, Ivan (2020. June 19th). The Time James Baldwin told UC Berkley that Black Lives Matter. Berkely News
Nelson, Emmanuel S. (1985). The Novels of James Baldwin: Struggles of Self-Acceptance.
Journal of American Culture. 8.4: 11-16.
Olney, James (1989). Introduction. In Olney, James (Eds) Afro-American Writing Today; An Anniversary Issue of the Southern Review – (pp.1-7) Louisiana State University Press – (Reprint of Southern Review, 1985).
Pratt, Louis H. (1978). James Baldwin. Twanye Publishers
Pratt, Louis H. and Standley, Fred L. (eds) (1989). Conversations with James Baldwin. University Press of Mississippi. Jackson and London.
Samuels, Wilfred D. and Hudson-Weems, Clenora (1990). Toni Morrison. Twayne Publishers.
Boston. 1st Editon.
Shuler, Edgar A. (1944). The Houston Race Riot, 1917. The Journal of Negro History. 29:3.
Taylor, Clyde (1989). Black Writing as Immanent Humanism. In Olney, James (Eds) Afro-American Writing Today; An Anniversary Issue of the Southern Review – (pp.203-213). Louisiana State University Press – (Reprint of Southern Review, 1985).
Wallace, Maurice O. (2002). Constructing the Black Masculine – Identity and Ideality in African American Men’s Literature and Culture, 1775-1998. Duke University Press, Durham and London.
Weatherby, WJ (1962, November 22nd). Native Son: An interview with James Baldwin. The Guardian. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/22/james-baldwin-interview-1962
Wright, Richard (2007). Blueprint for negro writing. In Gates, Henry Louis, Jr; Jarrett, Gene Andrew (Eds) The New Negro: readings on race, representation and African Culture, 1892-1938 (pp.268-277). Princeton University Press.
.
ANNEX
Supplementary Figure 1: James Baldwin in the cover of Time Magazine (May 17th, 1963).
Supplementay Figure 2: Cover of the first edition of "Go Tell it on the Moutain" (May 18, 1953, Knopf).