"Giovanni's Room" and Conflicts

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how understanding core values is the key to understanding character, which, in turn, leads to understanding conflict, plot and the underlying design of a narrative. It looks at how James Baldwin, in his book, "Giovanni's Room", depicts a young man in conflict. David is alienated from his own culture, and he is faced with making a choice concerning his sexual identity. It explores how we feel he must conform to the norms of having a wife and family, but is pulled toward sexual union with men, specifically an Italian bartender with whom he has an affair.

From the Paper:

"Being an American does not provide David with the "tools" he needs to deal with the new cultural arena into which he allows himself. Nicholas M. Evans explains that, "social proximity in and of itself does not provide the ability to perceive the "true" meaning of cultural experience. Nor does it ensure that the meanings a writer finds will cohere with audiences' modes of reception, leading to reader authentication of the writer's representation. Rather, specific cultural and historically contingent conditions shape both elements of the reputation-building process: the spokesperson, influenced by contemporary conventions of representation, constructs certain meanings about cultural experience, while audiences evaluate the "truth" of the meanings according to similar conventions" (147). The essence of his alienation is in terms of sexual preference."

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