"Home" in James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room

‘She looked at me steadily for awhile and then she said, “David. Don’t you think we ought to go home?”

“Go home? What for?”

“What are we staying here for? How long do you want to sit in this house, eating your heart out? And what do you think it’s doing to me?” She rose and came to me. “Please. I want to go home. I want to get married. I want to start having kids. I want us to live someplace, I want you. Please, David. What are we marking time over here for?”’(Baldwin 160-161)

This passage, which comes toward the end of Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, brings together several very important themes of the novel. One of these is the nuclear family structure, which is so essential to American life, that David seems to feel almost trapped into, as having no choice of whether he wants it or not. Regardless of his sexuality or true feelings on the matter (which are muddled at best), David feels that he will do these things because he has to, almost as a sign of manhood. Still, he is definitely hesitant to do this. Another, even more central theme, explored here is that of home.

Earlier in the novel, Giovanni says “you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you are here, you can always think: One day I will go home….You don’t have a home until you leave it, and then, when you have left it, you can never go back” (Baldwin 116).  This quote applies very heavily to the one above. David may be an American, but he has changed during his time in Europe, and America won’t be the same for him when he returns- it is no longer home for him. David, though confused and in deep denial, was able to be more open about his sexuality in France than he ever could have been in America, and this has changed him. When he goes back to America, if indeed he ever does, it will never be the same, be the home that it once was.