Extended Essays 2021

RQ: To what extent does Baldwin portray homosexual identity as a cause of destruction in Giovanni’s Room?

maintain the purity within the mirror, David’s face must be made to look like other faces, must be made to resemble heteronormativity. This is also established through David’s relationships with both Sue and Hella, wherein he describes that in order to be, “in the very act, so to speak, of trying to escape” (pg. 89), to have sex with Sue, David says, “I also approached Sue as though she were a job of work,” (pg. 89), and that sex with Hella was, “so unrelated, finally, to my life since it was not necessary for me to take any but the most mechanical responsibility for them.” (pg. 4). In both instances, sex with women is described using the rhetoric of flight, of escape from David’s own life. With Sue, David is explicitly “trying to escape”, however with Hella, the act is “unrelated…to [his] own life”, therefore implying that in order to facilitate flight from his identity, David must become removed from himself, his own life. In only taking the most “mechanical responsibility”, he approaches sex as though he was a machine at work, and this comparison between machinery and David whilst having sex then works to dehumanise David in this moment, demonstrating how far he is removed from his own identity, and from himself. Thus, in order to maintain heteronormativity, David engages in denial of his own identity. This denial of the self in order to maintain heteronormativity also causes the destruction of Giovanni’s personhood in the eyes of David. Giovanni says to David, “You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love.” (pg. 125). the use of the wording of “the stink of love” again recalls homosexuality as described through images of dirtiness, therefore showing that Giovanni’s identity, and thus David’s relationship with Giovanni, can be seen to be a direct reflection, and cause of, David’s own homosexuality. Thus, in order for David to maintain his heteronormative identity, he must also maintain an identity of heteronormativity for Giovanni. Giovanni says to David, “You smiled at me the way you smiled at everyone, you told me what you told everyone” (pg. 122), and the fact that this recalls David’s description of his own face as “like a face you have seen many times” (pg. 3) then shows that by treating Giovanni like everyone else, he is subjecting Giovanni to the same heteronormative gaze that he applies to himself to deny his own homosexual identity, and thus is effectively denying Giovanni’s homosexuality. Thus, in an effort to deny his own identity, David not only engages in self-denial, but also in denial of the identities of others.

David’s attempts to maintain his self-denial are ultimately what cause the destruction of his relationship with Giovanni, and of Giovanni himself. In order for David to maintain his

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