English 2000 Perspectives in Literature

What Jacques trying to tell David that he know wha his going on, that once he was his age and went trought what he is experiecing. He advice David to stop running from what/who he is, to accept himself without feeling ashamed or disgusted. Jacquees also advice David that is time to feel free, to love himself to stop pretending to be straight and allowed himself tobe loved the way be want and to express hisfeeling toward joey, giovanni or any other men he feel attracted wihout feeling disgusted. I believe that the theme of safety and risk is show  inthe conversation by describing what life can be for David.  If David decide to continue playing the “safety role” meaning contiuing pretendig someone his not (straight) he still going to be misarable andwojld mostly hate himself for not allowing to be happy. However, if he decides to take the risk no matter how society or he father will see him, feel toward him, he would be happy with himself and he love one(giovanni).

Jacques is trying to get David to see the importance of what happened with Giovanni; the beginning of a possible new and happy life that David can have if he only accepts it. “He is very fond of you….already. But this doesn’t make you happy or proud, as it should. IT makes you frightened and ashamed. Why?” (Jacques, 56) Jacques tries to get David to admit to himself that he has feelings for Giovanni and that even though he is scared, it may change him if he admits it to himself, he warns him that he will be miserable if he doesn’t take a risk. “You play it safe long enough….and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever…..like me”. (Jacques,57) David thinks he should marry Hella and have kids because this is what is accepted in society. However Jacques warns him that if he continues to lie to himself and tries to ignore his true feelings of what he really wants he will end up being very unhappy just as Jacques is. This part foreshadows the fact that David will hurt Giovanni, when it states “And to that poor boy, yonder, who doesn’t know that when he looks at you the way he does, he is simply putting his head in the lion’s mouth” (Jacques,55), because in the end David doesn’t have the guts to stay with Giovanni but leaves him when Hella came back to Paris.

The story opens with David standing at the window of his house in the south of France.  He drinks and watches night fall, preparing himself for the worst.  He began having flashbacks of all the events that took placed in this life, which led to him to this moment and shaped who he has become. “I wanted to find myself in Paris” was the statement that started his flight, when in reality he is fleeing from himself. I believe the reason for David leaving America, is to avoid his father learning of his experience with joey and to escape who he was becoming. David is attractive to men and is ashamed to accept it; he tries to live by this father’s statement of becoming a real man. Throughout the story David hides his homosexuality by sleeping with women and persuading himself that he is not sexuality attracted to men. David succeed in this flight as he stated, “I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home. But again, I think I knew, at the very bottom of my heart, exactly what I was doing when I took the boat for France”.

Giovanni’s room seems to represent a place one goes to get nowhere. David saw Giovanni’s room as a “filthy little room”. He did not seem to enjoy being there, however he found himself unable to leave it for the longest time. Giovanni’s room represents a present with no future, in my opinion. Even though David “loved” Giovanni, he was well aware that anything more than temporary lovers between him and Giovanni would never be possible. David did not enjoy being in that room, though he was compelled to stay within with Giovanni. He referred to it as “stinking and dirty” when he spoke to Hella about Giovanni and his room. The “room” seemed to have had the same meaning for David at the end of the novel as it did in the beginning of it. He never referred to the room as anything more than “Giovanni’s room” even though it was his place as well. To me that indicates a moment in David’s life that was memorable enough to not been have been referred to as simply my apartment or the place i used to live in.

-Carlos L.

I personally think David’s placement role is oppressed. The reason being is he’s in a confusion of his identity, identity crisis. He’s uncertain what’s right and wrong within in his life, and the decision(s) he’s making. Despite the fact he wants to be with Giovanni, however he does not want to leave Hella because of his homosexuality issues. He’s frightened being in this so-called “normality” because of his past with Joe up until meeting Giovanni. It is as if he is obliged to be in this “mythical norm” regarding his homosexuality. Something inside of him, it is constricting him from being expressive rather than hiding it, accepting it. He cannot fully acknowledge himself being “different” and the events happening to him.

First, Jacques wants David to be honest to himself. He attempts to convince David to open his heart and eyes to the truth about being gay. Also, he wants David to understand what is happiness? It is a knowing of who are you really are. However, David chooses to play it safe, “you play long enough”, says Jacques, because of that, Jacques does not want David to experience the same path as he did before, “you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me”, Jacques states. Secondly, Jacques wants to show David the right path before David screws himself up. If David decides to play safe, he won’t be able to enjoy himself, which means he can’t experience his true sexuality. On the other hand, if David chooses not to be ashamed, and if he “will only not play it safe”, says Jacques, then he gives himself a chance to explore his sexuality and to be loved by many attractive men. Life is like a poker game, either you take a risk or play it safe. David plays it extremely safe that he is at greater risk of losing. As a result, his loved one ends up hurting as well as himself.

According to Lorde’s “For in order to survive, those of us for whom oppression is as american as apple pie have always had to be watchers, to become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor, even sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection” to me signifies that we as a society is so accustomed to oppression that it has become a normative thing. But in alot of cases i believe that oppression can somewhat make a person stronger because of the struggles they have to overcome. But then again normal is becoming more of an outdated word in our time and age because no one is normal, yeah in the sense of being fully capable and not in special needs or something of that nature(not saying nothing about people like that) but everyone is changing, clothes, thinking, gays, straights, religion etc. normal isnt what it used to be. How every lady wore a dress and a man wore a tie and suit, or when people wore togas, normal is just a phrase to use as an excuse. David is falling into the thoughts of being a norm, when norm is just being you.

• I believe David goes to Paris to find himself and get away from everyone and everthing he knows. He really does not know who he is because he does not want to except who he is.  I believe he leaves because he thinks that if he leaves his home he can leave the part of him he does not seem to like. David does not want to be around his father because he feels like he disappionts him by being who he is considering the fact that the book paints his father to be this women loving manly man, so he removes himself from the equation. He continues to deny his sexuality and says he is straight. I believe that he succeeds in trying to find out who he is because in Paris he gets his answer that he is a gay man and no matter where he lives or even who hes with he will always be someone who is attracted to men.

Giovanni’s room represents Davids true feelings towards Joey, Giovanni and any man he finds attractive. The room is described by David as “a miserable closet of a room”, where its not complete and no matter how hard Giovanni tries to remodel it he still cannot change his view on the room, just as his relationship. He finds what he is doing is dirty and blames it on the room, “What kind of life can we have in this room?-This filthy little room”. It serves as a metaphor tying his emotions to the inanimate room, not even calling it a home even though he lived there for a couple of months. Throughout the book his view on the room never changes, even though he loved Giovanni he wanted to get away, far away, to the point he tries to convince Hella to move with him just to avoid Giovanni and his room.

As i read Age,Race, Class, and sex: Women Redefining Difference, I noticed that a lot has changed from back then and now. Sexuality now is more “normal” to our age group. Back then a lot of people didn’t accept gays or lesbians but i think that’s because the way things were back then. Women were expected to stay home and do everything at home. Now more people accept them because its more common in our years. There’s a lot of people who still don’t accept it but i think its more of the older people whom don’t accept it because their way of living back then. One example i can give to support my point is my grandmother. She doesn’t accept my mother because of my moms sexuality but she grew up in those times that no one accepted it. Also, Racism still exists today, there’s a a lot of people who experience racism today. My opinion, men and women would never be seen equally because the “myth” that was brought up in the old times, that women are expected to stay at home to cook, clean and take care of the children. Witch i don’t think is fair, but as long as women know that’s all that matters, and Sexuality wise i think it doesn’t matter who you want to be with as long as you find happiness, and Racism is just unbelievable and it needs to stop.