James Baldwin

For my presentation and paper, I have decided to focus on the power gender norms, and roles have on influencing societal interpretations of sexuality and how these interpretations affected James Baldwin. Throughout Baldwin’s writing and his interpretations of other texts, such as the Bible, we have seen that he prioritized love and self-acceptance as the ultimate goal in life. Baldwin’s Biblical interpretations are inclusive, and he embraces Christs’ message of love as the greatest act of faith and fulfillment. Despite this, we have seen the toll gender roles and sexuality norms took on the characters of Giovanni’s Room and how they impacted Baldwin’s understanding of his sexuality. In attempting to understand Baldwin’s perception of gender norms and roles, I reread “The Male Prison,” which beautifully articulates the disastrous nature of hypermasculinity and heteronormativity. Baldwin rejects notions of naturalism associated with sexuality and instead argues that human impulses are far beyond the constraints set by normative behavior. He argues that norms are reinforced to protect people’s conceptions of what is natural and normal, “And one of the reasons for this is that it would rob the nor­mal -who are simply the many – of their very necessary sense of security and order” ( The Male Prison, Collected Essays). Baldwin understands that norms are not inherent and can be abandoned but are not because the majority prefers to protect their sense of order.

Similarly, gender theorist Michel Foucault articulates rejections of norms as inherent and argues that this conception of gender and sexuality as science or fact is a strategy for state observation. Like Baldwin, Foucault acknowledges that human impulses exceed the norms and acknowledges that sexuality is about desire and pleasure and cannot be structured scientifically or generalized. Foucault takes Baldwin’s argument about norms only being in place to establish and protect order a step further by declaring that science was only ever associated with sexuality as a justification to promote heterosexuality which furthered state population reproduction goals. In essence, the state encourages society to perpetuate these gender norms to observe the population better and exert order and force. Baldwin is such a talented writer because of his ability to explain deep theoretical issues in a manner that illuminates the human perspective; he likens these restrictive forces to “The Male Prison” and arguably to “Giovanni’s Room.” In Giovanni’s Room, David and Giovanni are trapped, unable to go out and express their desire or true love for one another. Baldwin wants to show that the perpetuation of gender norms and roles is so pervasive that people struggle to accept themselves and ultimately have miserable fates as a result. It is evident that gender norms are constructed and intentionally restrictive. I believe that Baldwin rejected these norms so heavily not only because they limited his own sexual identity but because his faith calls for a message of love, acceptance, and understanding. Gender norms and roles do not prioritize the love and connection Baldwin repeatedly submits that all humans need.

I know it seems counterproductive to think about the role of women in a book all about men, but Hella’s been on my mind a lot this past week. I commented on Faith’s last post about the ways in which Hella constitutes an “easy way out” for David. Even though he does not love her, he values all that she represents as a woman: a socially acceptable heterosexual relationship, a couple of kids and white picket fence, and the promises of the American Dream™. 

What I find especially remarkable about Hella is just how incredibly unremarkable she is. Hella is hardly featured in the novel; aside from a brief appearance in the final chapters, she exists primarily as a vague, nebulous concept to which David periodically alludes but who never fully develops as a character. In fact, for all the many times she’s mentioned by other characters, all we really know about her is that she really submits to the patriarchy: her self-proclaimed purpose in life seems to be nothing more than to marry a man and to raise his children–to exist as someone’s “obedient and most loving servant,” which she professes is “all [she’s] good for” (EN&S 323-324)

Despite an initial reactionary distaste, it now occurs to me that Baldwin never intended to develop Hella because she’s not really a person at all: she’s a doorstop! Hella’s function is analogous to Madeleine’s in “The Male Prison.” As Baldwin describes it, “Madeleine kept open for [Gide] a kind of door of hope, of possibility, the possibility of entering into communion with another sex. This door, which is the door to life and air and freedom from the tyranny of one’s own personality, must be kept open, and none feel this more keenly than those on whom the door is perpetually threatening or has already seemed to close” (CE 233).

In exactly the same way that Madeleine appeals to Gide, so, too, does Hella appeal to David: not as an autonomous human being with her own thoughts and feelings, but as a representation of the nuclear family and the traditional gender roles into which David so damnably wants to fit. Hella is nothing more than a solution to David’s problems–a “steady ground, like the earth itself, where [he] could always be renewed” (EN&S 302).

As I read Giovanni’s Room, I could not quite put my finger on what Baldwin’s intentions were regarding Hella or his portrayal of women generally. In Go Tell It on the Mountain, he constructed well-rounded female characters and seemed to demonstrate an understanding of the difficulties women face regarding sexual relationships, childbirth, and motherhood. As a result, I had high expectations for his treatment of Hella in Giovanni’s Room, and I was puzzled to read Giovanni’s speech about women to David at the beginning of Part Two. Giovanni, probably due to jealousy, inquires about Hella and makes a number of broad generalizations about womenー what they want, who they are, and so on. 

“Nobody likes to travel, especially not women” (283).

“Women are just a little more trouble than I can afford right now” (284). 

“There is no need, thank heaven, to have an opinion about women. Women are like water. They are tempting like that, and they can be that treacherous, and they can seem to be that bottomless, you know?ーand they can be that shallow. And that dirty” (285). He goes on to say he possibly doesn’t really like women, but he still asserts he respects them… and that he used to beat them. All the while, he refers to Hella, a grown woman, as a “silly little girl” (285). When David defends Hella and her intelligence and complexity, Giovanni, who has never met her, describes her as a flighty busybody. Giovanni displayed absolutely no respect for women or for Hella during that entire interaction. Perhaps Baldwin wanted to display his jealousy, but the point of this scene still nags at me. I found it difficult to continue sympathizing with Giovanni after this part of the story. 

Finally, we meet Hella, and she gives her own speech about women. She explains to David how humiliating it is to be a single woman and having “to be at the mercy of some gross, unshaven stranger before you can begin to be yourself” (322). Here, Baldwin seems to understand that unmarried women during this time were sized up constantly by those around them, only being free once married, though that kind of freedom pales in comparison to that of a man. While Hella dislikes these constraints, she works within their confines to carve out a life for herself. Baldwin restores dignity to Hella’s character after Giovanni’s diatribe about her. 

I tend toward the conclusion that Baldwin is showing us all the complexities of Giovanni’s dynamic with David. His jealousy and the tension between the normative relationship of Hella and David and the same-sex one between David and Giovanni. I also recognize that this is a story of what it’s like to be a man, not a woman. 

As I finished reading Giovanni’s Room, I reflected on David’s fixation on how homosexuality is perceived by the general public and by himself. There are moments in the narrative where David does not seem to be experiencing his own life, but rather observing it passively, as if watching a play. It is also obvious that there is a disconnect between what he thinks and what he feels, which leads him to lead a life devoid of authenticity. I wanted to look deeper into how Baldwin portrays this dissonance in David’s character, and to examine how David’s inability to “act out,” as it were, the role he wants to play, leads him further into isolation. David’s first sexual encounter with someone of the same sex happened when he was in America, and when he was still very young. In the description of the night he and Joey shared, it is described as a night of purity and joy, perhaps the only moment in the novel to do so: “we gave each other joy that night. It seemed, then, that a lifetime would not be long enough for me to act with Joey the act of love” (225). This was short-lived, however, since the moment that snapped David back to reality is when he remembered that “Joey is a boy,” and that filled him with fear. He immediately thinks of how others would perceive what had happened, (“I wondered what Joey’s mother would say when she saw the sheets. Then I thought of my father…) rather than how he had felt. In the shame that others might have placed on him, he made his decision to do what he thought was right, even though it did not feel right.

Additionally, I also feel like David’s identity is inextricably tied to the fact that he is an American living in France. His American identity is brought up often by the people with whom he keeps company, and is also a large part of any conversation he has with Giovanni. I think this is the reason why he observes the fluidity of gender and sexuality in Paris as something abnormal, since he was not exposed to it back in America, where he formed the majority of his identity as a man and his perceptions on masculinity. David is still holding on to what he considers to be “normal” in a society where he is the one with ‘abnormal’ (“queer for women”) preferences. When Giovanni asks why David won’t tell Hella about them, David reminds Giovanni that “people have very dirty words for — for this situation… Besides, it is a crime — in my country and, after all, I didn’t grow up here, I grew up there” (286), as if the laws of another country would reach him here across the ocean.

David often feels like he is being observed like a “zoo animal,” but at the same time he engages in the same act of judging others based on his own prejudices and stereotypes. When he, Giovanni, Jacques, and Guillaume leave for breakfast one morning, he observes how “everybody, without seeming to, is looking at us and [he] is beginning to feel like a part of a travelling circus” (262). The quote that made me want to write a blog post about this is on page 263: Guillame’s suggestion had the effect — but subtly, as though a wind had blown over everything or a light been imperceptibly intensified — of creating among the people at the bar, a troupe, who would no play various roles in a play they knew very well.” I could not help but think that this motion — of people settling into roles which they knew very well, roles that they knew they could (and to some extent, should) play — highlighted the inner turmoil that David feels throughout the novel, since it is his inability to do so that leads to Giovanni’s death and to his despair.