MATCHBOX

On the occasion of James Baldwin’s 100th anniversary, Dafni S H, an MA English with Communication Studies student at Christ University in Bengaluru reflects on the writer’s portrayal of liberty.

               What if I tell you that liberty is not a straight, seamless road that guarantees ultimate happiness? Liberty is rather a rugged trail. On entering it, you fall, learning to wipe off your bloody knees. You stumble upon things that you will never otherwise witness. You will question all that you have learned. Liberty is terrifying. But sometimes you need terror to find parts of yourself you never knew. Giovanni’s Room made me realise liberty is losing yourself to find yourself.

               James Baldwin, in his book, Giovanni’s Room portrays the different layers of liberty with a skilled artistry. The story set in 1950s Paris, is about David, an American man struggling with his love for Giovanni, an Italian bartender. As David’s journey highlights the painful implications of concealing one’s real identity amid rigid social conventions, the idea of liberty plays a crucial role in the narrative. I realised it is not in the elite and the extravagance that one can find their true selves, but rather in the crooked nooks and corners of the world. It is in one such corner that David and Giovanni found themselves. Left alone in their path of freedom, who knew a small cheap bar would set off such turmoil in the minds of the two men? At the novel’s centre is Giovanni’s cramped, messy room, hidden away in a decaying area of Paris; although it is a place of deterioration, it provides David and Giovanni with a sort of haven. This room, with its dated decor and low lighting, is where David and Giovanni’s romance begins. Here, they can freely express their love, despite its complexity and potential for conflict, away from the critical gaze of society. Here, they find one layer of liberty.

               In Giovanni’s Room, liberty is more than simply the ability to love anyone you want; it is also the difficult process of balancing that choice with the possibility that it will not be accepted by everyone. Freedom, as portrayed in the book, is a challenging, frequently excruciating path toward self-acceptance, where each step forward feels like a fight against the forces that want to stifle or reject one’s actual self. It was when I stepped out of my home to college at 18 in a different city, that I had a taste of freedom. But the taste comes with a lot of bitterness. Today, as a 21-year-old, I am more clueless than ever about the world. It takes countless falls to even identify the right path to your life. James Baldwin portrays just that with his realistic characters.

                 The characters in Giovanni’s Room frequently share little, seemingly unremarkable events that lead to epiphanies and liberating moments. When David and Giovanni cross Boulevard Montparnasse, there is one such event.

 “We were both insufferably childish and high-spirited that afternoon and the spectacle we presented, two grown men jostling each other on the wide sidewalk and aiming the cherry pits, as though they were spitballs, into each other’s faces, must have been outrageous. And I realized that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than
he was that afternoon.”

Even though it is a basic scenario, it is full of meaning and a moving illustration of how freedom and self-awareness may arise in brief, personal encounters. These are the moments when your mind feels light because you remove your cloak of responsibilities and expectations.

               Human emotions are tangled barbed wires. Its confusing and sometimes dangerous layers make humans the most convoluted creatures in the world. Baldwin excellently puts these complex emotions into words through his character, Giovanni. Giovanni faces the scary prospect of having to face his true self and go against both his deeply held convictions and the prevailing standards of the period when he exercises his liberty to choose love. Adopting liberty implies taking a chance on alienation, giving up the familiar comforts of convention, and plunging into the deep well of self-discovery, which makes this a challenging route. To worsen his state, he does not have the luxury of ambivalence like David. David could switch between multiple identities while avoiding making decisions that would require him to face the full consequences of his thoughts and feelings.

“Yes,” I said, wearily, “I can have a life with her.” I stood up. I was shaking. “What kind of life can we have in this room?—this filthy little room. What kind of life can two men have together, anyway?”.

In contrast to David, Giovanni’s sexuality and survival are intertwined because he depends on David for both his emotional and financial well-being.

               The desire for liberty and our dread of its repercussions frequently conflict with one another. Being able to fully accept who we are and be ourselves might have its drawbacks. From one perspective, it presents the opportunity to lead a genuine life filled with contentment and enjoyment. Conversely, too, it might result in loss of security, rejection, and isolation. Baldwin’s metaphors and imagery also convey this conflict in many of his other works. One great example would be his short story, Come Out the Wilderness. The story is about Ruth, a young Black woman negotiating a complicated interracial romance in 1950s New York City while grappling with her identity and sense of worth. It explores the themes of racial tension, loneliness, and individual freedom. The title itself can be a metaphor for leaving a state of entrapment and uncertainty behind and entering a state of clarity and freedom. It alludes to a journey toward liberation. One could see Ruth’s ultimate choice to walk away from Paul as her initial move toward regaining her independence and autonomy.

               Throughout the narrative, Ruth’s journey seems to be a search for individual freedom. She wants out of the emotionally binding connection that keeps her in. The yearning for identity and autonomy that many of Baldwin’s characters experience is reflected in her struggle for freedom. Her quest for freedom resembles a walk through a thick, gloomy forest. She is initially disoriented, and entangled in the weeds of emotional reliance, self-doubt, and social expectations. Her path is blocked and her actual self is shadowed by the destructive relationship she had with Paul. Her choice to part ways with Paul is like walking out of a wilderness and into a brightly lit field where she may now breathe freely and unrestricted.

               Liberty is a need that many of Baldwin’s characters struggle to achieve because of the complex relationships between race, sexual orientation, religion, and social expectations. His words are a double-edged sword that not only reflects human behaviours but also entices the readers into seeing the characters as their own selves.