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Essay / Giovanni's Room: the possibility of homosexual love
In James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, David is a heterosexual man with homosexual desires. This desire to be with men makes him insensitive to how he actually feels when he is with his four lovers - both male and female. Every relationship he's ever been in is destroyed as he tries to find deeper meaning in his actions. Throughout the book, David realizes that his relationship and “act of love” (sex) with women is nothing but desire – a need to establish his sexuality; but at the same time, David is mistaken in thinking that his relationship with men is love when in reality his actions after being with them show that it is also an act of lust and therefore he fails to maintain a stable relationship with your lovers. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay David fails to maintain a stable relationship with the women he meets because the relationship he has with them - no matter how long - is based on lust, not love. David's desire can be defined as the need to establish his sexuality. David knows this and uses Sue and Hella to establish this façade of being heterosexual and only engages in "acts of love" to reinforce the idea that he is indeed a heterosexual man. This idea of using women to fulfill his sexual desires is evident when he meets Sue. David falls in love with Sue and begins commenting on her appearance of having "small breasts and a big butt... [wearing] tight blue jeans" and even going so far as to "[mentally] take off all her clothes". (95). By describing her physical features and mentally undressing her as soon as they meet, David sees in her a means of fulfilling his sexual desire and, through her, establishing his heterosexuality. David acts on this feeling and asks Sue to have sex. Even though David begins to think that "what I did with Giovanni couldn't be more immoral than what I'm about to do with Sue", he continues his plan to have sex with her knowing that it would just be meaningless sex. fueled by his lust (99). During the sexual encounter, he describes approaching Sue as "although it was work, work that had to be done in an unforgettable way" (100). By describing Sue as a “job” that must be accomplished in an “unforgettable way,” David fails to establish any connection with her that could lead to a stable relationship. This reinforces the idea that he wants nothing more than her body and what she can provide for him. Although David is committing this "macabre act of love", he knows that there is no connection between him and Sue; that Sue is just a girl who is only spending one night. It is through this understanding that David knows that a stable relationship with Sue is just a crazy idea. After committing this “macabre act of love,” David pushes Sue aside, reinstating the idea that David wants nothing other than the sex of his lovers to establish his sexuality. As for Hella, when David sees her for the first time, he also falls in love with her. David thinks "it would be fun to have fun with her" and states that it was "all [it] meant to him", confirming that the idea of being with her is out of lust and not love (4 ). The idea that this is lust is evident in that David only sees her as someone he can "have fun" with, not someone he can maintain a stable relationship with. . Only later does David try to trick himself into believing that he loves Hella by saying "I told her I loved her once and I made myself believe it" (5) to help her further to face hisbattle against his homosexual desires. David knows for himself that it's a lie when he tells her that he loves her, but he tries to believe it as much as he can because he doesn't want to question his sexuality. By questioning his sexuality, David would question his action as something based on lust to establish his sexuality, but it is in this sense that time frame where he does not want to question his sexuality because he wants to believe that he loves her. It was only after Hella left that David stopped deceiving himself and saw the truth in his relationship with Hella. He begins to think that what he had with her was pure lust and that he is not sure it "ever really meant more than that to [him]" (4). He also understands that he made a mistake by loving her and making himself believe that he was in love to counter his homosexual desires. Only at the end - after screwing up Hella's concept of love - does David understand that what fueled his relationship with Hella is the same thing that fueled his relationship with Sue: the desire to establish one’s sexuality. For these lovers, he fails to keep a stable relationship because all he wants from them is sex. By having sex with them, David believes he can establish his heterosexuality and thus counter his homosexual desire. This shows that David will not be able to have and maintain a stable relationship with women because he only lusts after them to establish his sexuality. As David understands that his relationship with Sue and Hella is based on lust, David believes that his relationship with Joey and Giovanni is no longer romantic, but his actions show otherwise. This confusion leads David to struggle as he tries to maintain a relationship with his male lovers because he does not understand whether what he has with them is love or lust. He fails to differentiate between love and lust, but sincerely believes, during the period of intimacy, that what he has is love. The first instance where he has trouble differentiating between love and lust is when he is with Joey. He realizes that when he touched Joey that night, "something happened within [them] that made that touch different from any touch they had ever experienced" (8). It's this "something" that leads David to think that what he has with Joey is love. He imagines that because it is a different “touch” that there is something more and that is what leads him to think that he has fallen in love. He further says that “a lifetime would not be long enough for me to perform the act of love with Joey” (8). From this meeting, David deceives himself into believing that he is so in love that even “a lifetime [will] not be long enough” to show his love. But although he was mistaken in believing that he was in love, his subsequent actions proved that it was only a feeling of desire. This so-called love that David experienced is short-lived and proves that it wasn't love to begin with. During his night with Joey, David describes how one life won't be enough, but later says, "But that life was short, it was limited by that night..." demonstrating that David was filled with emotion that night and that he was so wrong as to think that what he had with Joey was love (8). Additionally, David begins to mistreat Joey, further reinforcing the idea that what he had with Joey is not love. If what he truly feels for Joey is love, David would not be abusive towards Joey. The line between love and desire is blurred, especially in Giovanni's case. David, from the beginning, is already wrong in being in love with Giovanni. Unknowingly, Jacques helps David believe this lie when he tells David, “love him, love him and let him love you” (57). As David continues to be with Giovanni, he tries..