Giovanni’s Room: Irony 2 key examples

Giovanni’s remarks are surprisingly—disturbingly—violent. For a gay man previously married with a wife, this misogyny is also lightly ironic. Giovanni is no beneficiary of privilege himself: he lives in a squalid room infested with dust, heaps of cardboard boxes, and rotting potatoes. He tangles himself in an exploitative sexual relationship to secure employment. Despite Paris’s social scene, homophobic stigmas still exist, and at points the awareness of them causes Giovanni to instinctively “stiffen like a hunting dog.” A character who cobbles together a life along the margins is far from qualified to command violence or prescribe discipline. Yet this is precisely the incongruence that Baldwin presents: a victim of injustice desiring to inflict the same upon another group.

Giovanni is not the only one to betray concerningly misogynistic attitudes. David looks down on women, too. While walking through Montparnasse, he passes “French whores” and demeans them for their looks: “I could do better than that.” He manipulates Sue’s affections before violating her, and loathes the “housewife” role he plays in Giovanni’s room. Giovanni and David’s disdain towards women is partly a reflection of their own social anxieties. Aware of the prevailing social conventions, they seek to defend their own masculinity at the expense of the women around them. Instead of forming solidarity with another traditionally marginalized population, Giovanni and David channel their fears into more destructive forms of resentment.

This stretch of dialogue exploits the story’s central irony to dramatic effect. The reader clearly knows of David’s love affair, even if Hella may not, and in this moment she teeters perilously close to discovery. The couple has just bumped into a “stock-still,” “vindictive” Giovanni accompanied by Jacques, and the uncomfortable “tableau” nearly exposes David’s two lives. The moment verges on the brink of disaster.

David’s conversation with Hella lingers in the wake of this uncertainty. It is unclear whether Hella has realized his affairs, and David attempts to right the course by disavowing his connections to Giovanni and Jacques. When Hella prompts David to drink with his friends, he rejects her offer by explaining that he is “not married” to either of his friends. David’s extreme suggestion makes a show of separating himself from Giovanni and Jacques, though it ironically describes the very reality he’s concealing. In some sense, his highly exaggerated refusal backfires on itself. David is sexually involved with both men, and his mention of marriage actually brings to the surface what he is attempting to deny.

More than assuaging Hella, David potentially arouses her suspicions instead. His fiancée replies that “just because you’re going to be married to me doesn’t mean you have to break your word to your friends”—a response that subtly reasserts her exclusive relationship with him and dismisses Giovanni as a mere “friend.”