Feminist Themes in Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room

Novels with a cast of primarily male characters can include varying amounts of feminist ideas. Although Giovanni’s Room mainly focuses on the lives of gay men, James Baldwin includes various feminist themes. Through the men in Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin showcases how socially created masculinity complexes rely on the humiliation and disenfranchisement of women. Through his main female character, Hella, Baldwin argues how women’s freedom often relies on men.

For men like David, masculinity is dependent on degrading women and femininity in general. While describing his first sexual encounter with a man, David tells of the “joy [David and Joey] gave each other that night” (8). Waking up the next morning, David describes Joey as beautiful and vulnerable, “curled like a baby on his side” (8). Because of these traditionally feminine features, the shock that Joey is a man does not immediately hit David. He becomes overwhelmed with his power over the sleeping man, feeling “gross and crushing” because of his bigger size. This feeling of power and masculinity that overtakes David is resultant of the gender roles in 1950s society, where men had the majority of the power in relationships.

David’s realization that “Joey is a boy” comes when he notices “the power in his arms, in his thighs, in his loosely curled fists” (9). David’s association of males with strength and females with vulnerability results in his own shame over not feeling masculine enough. In this way, Baldwin shows how society’s masculinization of men not only results in stereotypes for women, but in feeling of self hatred for men.

The stereotype of women as housekeepers emerges from this masculinization in society. David feels so ashamed about his sexuality, that he completely rejects the idea that men, especially himself, could do housework. After he sleeps with Joey, he worries about “what Joey’s mother would say when she saw the sheets,” implying that Joey’s mother, not his father, would be the one to launder sheets (9). Once David moves into Giovanni’s room, he cleans it up while Giovanni works, although he feels “a kind of pleasure” from it at first, he soon comes to the belief that “men can never be housewives” (88). This part of his relationship with Giovanni causes David to feel immense shame, and he accuses Giovanni of treating him like his “little girl,” disgust dripping form the word, although David willingly cleaned and “played housewife” with Giovanni (142, 88). This idea of David wanting to be powerful in a relationship extends into his relationship with Hella. He stays with her in part so that he can live with his “manhood unquestioned, watching my woman put my children to bed” (104). This is another example of how feminist ideas in Giovanni’s Room are so closely tied to ideas about patriarchy and masculinity.

David’s fixation with masculinity stems from his upbringing. Without a mother, David grows up under the care of his alcoholic, womanizing father and an aunt who his father constantly argues with. All David’s father wants is for David to “grow up to be a man” (15). Because David desperately wants to please his father, he internalizes the idea that the only way to be a man is to be a womanizer.

Baldwin uses Hella as the female perspective on the gender roles in society. Hella has an odd place in the novel, being that she is one of the only women, and also one of the only straight people in the story. For the majority of the novel, her character is used as a reminder to David that a more socially accepted path exists for him. Her character moves toward the forefront of the novel, however, when she discusses feminist issues after her trip from Spain. David cannot understand how Hella believes that being a woman is difficult, “not as long as she’s got a man” (124). Hella argues, however, that David’s response is exactly the kind of thing that make womanhood difficult. Relying on men for happiness is “a sort of humiliating necessity” (124). Hella comes to terms with the notion that she couldn’t be free until she “committed to someone” (126). Ironically, Hella’s commitment to David falls through, sending her back home from her life in Europe. Here Baldwin shows how patriarchy controls the lives of women. Women who wanted to find success in the 1950s had to make a difficult choice. They could marry “a stranger,” giving up personal freedom but having economic freedom, or stay alone and risk stability and a socially accepted life (126). In this way, Hella’s life parallels that of David, who has to make decisions based on what society will think of them.

Baldwin also points out how a transgender women or drag queens are treated differently by even other LGBT people like David. David finds these women “grotesque” and refuses to acknowledge that they are even women (27). This could also stem from David’s rejection of men taking on feminine traits, or his rejection of the entire LGBT community in general.

Although hidden under the angst and love story of Giovanni’s Room, the major theme in the novel centers around David’s shame about his sexuality and masculinity. Baldwin provides copious evidence, through David and Hella, that masculinization degrades both men and women, and adds to the harmful gender stereotypes revered by society.