Giovanni’s Room is a novel written by James Baldwin. Its story centers around David, an American living in Paris, his short romance with a Italian bartender named Giovanni, and his titular room. The story begins the night before Giovanni’s execution, David staring limply staring at his own reflection, reflecting on everything that brought him to this moment. The narrative opens up many mimetic-level questions that lure the reader in from the beginning. Who is Giovanni and why is he being executed? Why has his girl, Hella, left him alone in this house in France? Why is David in such distress that even heavy drinking cannot dull his pain? I was drawn in immediately, with barely enough land to gain purchase, but just enough to hook me into wanting to see what happened next.
Coming into this book, I knew very little. From my fellow reading group leader Matt, I knew there were LGBT themes, and that it possibly didn’t end well for the main character. First off, as a straight guy, I can be slightly resistant to this type of narrative. This is not to say that I am prejudiced, but it is to say that the world I grew up in, the “straight white male” world, has influenced me to think a certain way about gay people, even without my consent. I have never had the fear that David has. I have never been worried that someone would discover what David thinks is his dark secret. So, for me, part of my “reading for” was both to imagine myself in David’s shoes, and to attempt to understand his inner turmoil about his attraction to men.
In the section titled “Structure and Meaning” of his book Story, Robert McKee outlines a method by which we can view the tension in the action of a story. “Two ideas bracket the creative process: Premise, the idea that inspires the writer’s desire to create a story, and Controlling Idea, the story’s ultimate meaning expressed through the action and aesthetic emotion of the last act’s climax.” (McKee 112). So, as all stories do, we must begin with a premise: a question from which Giovanni’s Room might be born. Let’s give it a shot. What if someone never let their true self be know, even to themselves? Although this could be slightly different, perhaps more geared towards David’s sexuality specifically, I think it is a good launching pad toward a controlling idea, and consequently counter idea.
To determine the Controlling Idea, the main idea that wins at the climax of the story, let’s first look at McKee’s definition. “It identifies the positive or negative charge of the story’s critical value at the last act’s climax, and it identifies the chief reason that this value has changed to its final state.” (McKee 116). So, let’s look at the climactic moment at the end of Giovanni’s Room, the moment where one idea destroys another and becomes the idea that controls the story. As I see it, this pivotal moment is when David finds a letter from Jacques.
The morning weighs on my shoulders with the dreadful weight of hope and I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me and tear it slowly into many pieces, watching them dance in the wind, watching the wind carry them away. Yet, as I turn and begin walking toward the waiting people, the wind blows some of them back on me..
Baldwin 169
This is the moment where David makes his final choice, the choice that informs how we see the whole narrative. Let’s take a shot at a controlling idea based on the value and cause of his decision. Closing oneself off from intimacy and closeness leads to anguish in solitude. We can see the value judgement (anguish) and the cause (closing oneself off) in this statement, and based on where David ends up in the story, alone and directionless, it does seem like this idea wins. Let’s attempt a counter-idea to this idea. Allowing oneself to be seen and accepted by others (and oneself) will lead to fulfillment and love. We can see how these ideas are opposed, being closed and protective vs being open and honest, and can view, moment by moment, these ideas battle against one another. Let’s examine the previous quote to see them at work.
“The morning weighs on my shoulders” ↓ “with the dreadful weight” ↓ “of hope” ↑ “and I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me” ↑ “and tear it slowly into many pieces, watching them dance in the wind, watching the wind carry them away.” ↓ “ Yet, as I turn and begin walking toward the waiting people,” ↓ “ the wind blows some of them back on me.” ↑
So that last arrow is pointing up. Huh. Even though I earlier made the argument that the climactic moment, and thus the Controlling Idea, is negatively charged. Nonetheless, McKee explains a type of Controlling Idea that allows for the marriage of the negative charge with the positive, when the Controlling Idea and Counter-idea become intermingled: the Ironic Controlling Idea. David shows a failure to allow intimacy by ripping up Jacques’s letter, a final olive branch of acceptance from someone who “knows him”. Here, we can see the Controlling Idea win. However, in the final moment of the novel, maybe in some cosmic attempt to show David how his actions have hurt not only Giovanni and Hella, but also himself, the pieces of the scattered letter blow back onto him, forcing him to face all that he has rejected. In this way, I can see a joining together of opposing forces in this climax.
Read the Room 