We don't know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that's a fact. - Jean-Paul SartreSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn the novel Giovanni's Room, author James Baldwin invites his readers to travel to Paris after World War II. The San Francisco Chronicle describes this reading as "a violent, excruciating beauty," highlighting the stark contrast between the 1950s Paris of American expatriates and the glittering backdrop of the first wave of the Lost Generation. By choosing this as his backdrop, Baldwin sets the scene for a highly controversial tale about death, love, and the complexity of choices. Engulfed in the violence and connections of an expatriate society, a young man, David, finds himself “caught between desire and conventional morality”. Playing on David's existential crisis, Baldwin's Giovanni's Room discovers just how heavy the responsibility of acting for one's own freedom is. As defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary (1828), existentialism is "a philosophical movement primarily of the 20th century embracing diverse doctrines but focused on analysis." of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the fate of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong, right or wrong. To understand how Baldwin captured the existential gravity of freedom, we must first explain how existentialists think freedom works. In philosophical theory, freedom lies in the ability to choose our own values, because our values ​​are isolated from the determination of any external force, including divinity. Weighing what we value is how we make decisions. It is therefore essential in existentialism to note that it is a personal responsibility to recognize one's values ​​and that our decisions are made in complete autonomy. Decisions are then followed by our subsequent actions and reactions. Therefore, we are responsible for our actions and must learn to see how our actions have caused other reactions. Herein lies, as previously mentioned, “the fate of the individual who must bear ultimate responsibility for acts of free will.” In the following paragraphs, using this structure of freedom as a guide, it will become clear how Baldwin uses David's complex situation to highlight "the fate." At the heart of existentialism is that freedom lies in the power to decide what is of value. This is why 1950s Parisian expatriate society serves as a brilliant backdrop to Giovanni's Room, keeping in mind that "many existentialists identified the 19th and 20th centuries as experiencing a crisis of values." (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Np, nd Web. May 9, 2017) We can see that the 20th century was a society in the grip of traumatic changes through "an increasingly secular society or the rise of scientific or philosophical movements which challenged traditional conceptions of value (e.g. Marxism or Darwinism), or the overwhelming experience of two world wars and the phenomenon of mass genocide. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Np, nd Web. May 9, 2017) These changes have forced humans to question the value of everything, from life to tradition. The ingenious factor in Baldwin's choice of this period is that it is defined by a genuine existential crisis. It is capable of highlighting the struggle for values ​​and freedom to whichwe face daily, using a topic as common and relevant as love. David's story of sexual freedom as a young man whose wealth and power are tied to societal expectations, who resists the appropriation of his sexuality as a gay man by engaging with Hella and Giovanni , and who lives in the middle of 1950s post-World War II Paris. II, as an American expatriate, brings the complexity and confusion of love from the pages of Baldwin's book. This exaggerated scenario of liberation brings out the theme of existentialism in relation to freedom which does not exist without responsibility. In order to understand how Baldwin artfully constructed David's "fate", we must return to the previously referenced structure of freedom as found in the existential movement. Now that we understand that freedom lies in our ability to measure value, we can determine that decisions are made by weighing the value of one option and the outcome of another. Thus, as previously stated, “freedom is partly defined by the isolation of my decisions from any determination by a deity, or by pre-existing values ​​or knowledge.” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Np, nd Web. May 9, 2017) In Giovanni's Room, these external forces are identified as God and American society. Throughout the novel, David almost never uses religious language for guidance. At the end of part one When his older Italian governess asks him if he prays, David stammers: “No, no. Not often. (page 69). And when she asks him if he's a believer, he gets a weird smile to which she replies, "You have to pray," and a whole speech about how marrying a good woman and having babies will make him happy. Only until the very end of the book does David use religious language to describe himself and Giovanni. He imagines Giovanni kissing the cross in his final moments only for a priest to take the cross away from him. David then speaks of his own nudity in the mirror, "under a sentence of death" and rushing "toward revelation." He ends by thinking, “That the heavy grace of God, which brought me to this place, is all that can get me out of it.” » (Page 169) Baldwin's choice to end both sections of the book, with mentions and thoughts about God, shows us as readers that even though David may not seem pious, he allows his actions to still be guided by the amount of values ​​of elders, of others. , and tradition gives confidence. The second external force that David allows to rule his life is American society. For David, he is constantly fighting between the white picket fence, a wife and children, or living openly with Giovanni. David remembers what American society expects of him through his father's letters, asking him to come home, and Hella saying that she "I will marry her. He is also affected by strong beliefs of homophobia, because being openly gay is far from accepted and is certainly not what is expected of a young man given his social and economic status. The effects that David allows these expectations to have on. his life are clearly seen in his relationship with Giovanni in which he is dissatisfied, hostile and distant. The truth of his actions is best seen in Giovanni's reaction during their biggest argument in which Giovanni accused David of wanting something. he was "a little girl", referring to the perfect American heterosexual life that David simply did not want to let go of. In these cases, David did not use his freedom to decide the value of God and the expectations of the. society in his life, but instead he carelessly tried.