Sexism In Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin’s literary masterpiece, Giovanni’s Room, fits the formulas of queer pulp fiction found predominantly in the 1940’s to 1970’s. Since the topic of homosexuality was then considered taboo and widely unacceptable by the government, publishers were hesitant to back works about the topic, but nonetheless understood the financial potential of cornering the queer market. In order to both corner the queer market and not appear to endorse portrayals of homosexuality, publishing houses began publishing queer fiction, but forced them to conclude tragically. Formulaically, one, or both, of the members of a queer couple would die by the end of the story, and the surviving member of the couple is assumed to return to a heteronormative lifestyle. The death of queer love

___ Bronski, in surveying his personal archive, found that works of classic gay literature “were epitomized by self-hatred and ended in suicide, murder, or some other form of death” (Bronski 16). Generally, works published previous to the rise of gay liberation in the sixties, with notable exceptions such as Patricia Highman’s The Price of Salt, follow this formula. Negative and hopeless portrayals of queer individuals are not only because of publishing standards, but combine with how classifying homosexuality and addressing it as an identity was born out of the field of criminology, which sought to categorize sexuality while studying criminals and prove correlation between homosexual practice and crime. But considering that member of the queer community are more likely to experience violence, poverty, and mental illness as a result of discrimination they face because of their sexuality, these stories were not necessarily overreacting to harsh lives queer individuals