Giovanni’s Room: Part 1: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The narrative present of Giovanni’s Room takes place as David drinks alone in southern France, but the majority of the novel focuses on the time he spends in Paris directly preceding this period. When David goes to dinner with Jacques, then, it has been two years since he left the Army and traveled to France. The nature of his relationship with Jacques is important to note, since they seem to have a mutually-beneficial connection that hinges upon their shared ability to exploit each another. While David uses Jacques for money, Jacques uses David to benefit his public image. In this regard, then, both men allow themselves to be manipulated so they can each get what they want. As Baldwin outlines this dynamic, he prepares readers to question who, exactly, has more power in such relationships—a question he doesn’t address until later in the novel.

Part of Jacques’s interest in David has to do with David’s inability or unwillingness to be truthful with himself about his sexual orientation. This, it seems, makes him even more appealing to someone like Jacques, who wants to be seen as a flirtatious and devilish older man capable of sexually conquering a confused and attractive young man. In this way, the nature of their mutually exploitative relationship begins to shift. Jacques’s fascination preys on David’s delicate emotions, whereas David’s interest in Jacques is strictly monetary and, thus, surface-level. In turn, the power dynamics of their relationship no longer seem quite as equal as they first appeared.

David’s intolerance when it comes to the people surrounding him in Guillaume’s bar recalls his decision to bully Joey after their sexual encounter. In both cases, he recognizes something of himself in the people around him, and because he doesn’t want to acknowledge this part of himself, he treats these people with bitterness. Judging the gay men and “les folles” (a French slang term for crossdressers or trans women) in Guillaume’s bar, he appears determined to deny his own attraction to men. In turn, this determination turns into a form of resentment of anyone who might threaten his contrived self-image as a heterosexual man. 

Although it might be the case that Jacques preys on David’s closeted confusion, it also becomes clear in this moment that David exploits Jacques’s emotions. Of course, his desire to take Jacques’s money is certainly less psychologically invasive than the delight Jacques takes in making him uncomfortable, but David’s technique of giving Jacques hope is indeed emotionally manipulative. In this manner, Baldwin continues to develop the complicated power dynamics at play in such relationships.

In this scene, Jacques gives David an excuse to finally explore his true desires. What’s worth noting is that Jacques’s request gives David the perfect opportunity to pursue his attraction to men while maintaining his guise as a heterosexual man, since he’s only asking Giovanni to have a drink on Jacques’s behalf. Jacques recognizes that this is the perfect way to get David to leave behind his strict ideas about masculinity without damaging his “immaculate manhood,” a phrase that underlines David’s sense that his own masculinity is fragile and precious, something he might ruin by deviating from stereotypical male behavior. Now, though, he can both indulge his inner desires while maintaining his public image as a straight man—a perfect combination to get him to step slightly outside his comfort zone.

The fact that David has to use his own money to buy Giovanni a drink is a perfect representation of how invested he is in this flirtatious interaction. The only reason he agreed to ask Giovanni to have a drink was because he thought he would be able to preserve his heterosexual image while secretly indulging his attraction. Now that he’s left alone with Giovanni, though, he loses hold of his excuse to pursue the attractive young server, thereby making it harder for him to posture as an uninterested straight man.

In David and Giovanni’s first conversation, they lean on their national identities, using them to define each other. In particular, Giovanni calls attention to David’s American belief that people can choose their fate. This is an important conversation because it is related to David’s approach to his sexual identity. In the same way that David believes he can choose to ignore his attraction to men, he thinks it’s possible for a person to meticulously control their lives. In contrast, Giovanni clearly believes that humans must embrace the unchangeable realities of life. What’s interesting, though, is that he associates David’s naiveté with his American identity. Giovanni’s categorization undoubtedly has complicated implications for David, who has purposefully left the United States in order to enjoy the freedoms of a new lifestyle—a lifestyle that Giovanni himself perhaps represents.

It’s relatively unsurprising that David dislikes Giovanni’s suggestion that he’s a quintessential American, since he has made such a concerted effort to escape that way of life. On another note, readers once again see the strange power dynamics at play in David’s relationship with Jacques, since he feels obligated to speak kindly about the old man merely because he has accepted money from him. As the novel progresses, then, it becomes clearer and clearer that this friendship is fraught with unspoken concerns and struggles.

Again, David is either unable or unwilling to embrace his attraction to men. For this reason, he feels ashamed for enjoying his conversation with Giovanni so thoroughly. In keeping with this, he can’t stop thinking about what other people might be saying or thinking about him, an indication of just how much he cares about his public image.

David’s unwillingness to refer to the trans woman who approaches him as “she” underscores the resentment he feels toward anyone who might pose a threat to his tenuous conception of masculinity. In this regard, his transphobia stems from his own confusion about what it means to be a man. To him, heterosexuality and conventional manliness are what define masculinity. Consequently, it unsettles him to think that both he and this trans woman could be attracted to men. This person has made the decision to present as a female, and her ability to do this forces David to reckon with the socially-constructed nature of gender. If this trans woman who has the same sexual preferences as him can be something other than a man, then David could be too, and this idea disconcerts him because he’s trying so hard to commit himself to such a narrow conception of masculinity. 

Although Jacques seems to take a mean-spirited kind of delight in toying with David’s closeted confusion, it’s worth noting that his advice in this moment is quite sound. In fact, his blunt words indicate that he cares about David to a certain extent, since he doesn’t want the young man to spend more of his adult life in denial about his sexual identity. Unfortunately, though, David is unwilling to hear this from Jacques, even if his attitude toward Giovanni has already made it quite clear that everything Jacques has said is true.

As David continues speaking to Giovanni, his guard slowly falls. However, this doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with the effect Giovanni has had on him—it simply means that his repressed desires are too strong to overcome. After all, he began this interaction thinking that he could safely step outside of his comfort zone without sacrificing his image as a heterosexual man. As soon as he did this, though, he saw that it would be impossible to hide his true feelings, and now he seems to have surrendered to whatever’s going to happen between him and Giovanni.