James Baldwin once said “Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”. David's fight with love leaves those that commit to him wanting more. From those encounters David does not take the opportunity to grow. His reluctance to grow and to love comes from his refusal to accept love in its many forms, stemming from his American-born ideals of acceptable sexuality. So, David's inability to grow and to love shows the everlasting grasp of exclusionary American social constructions. It is important to note that the The lack of connection David feels for others, is not mutual. While David is with Giovanni when Hela is away, Giovanni establishes a deep connection with david, …show more content…
David's interaction with Giovanni could have been more if David was willing to open up and truly love, but david always held back “it was because he knew, unwillingly, at the very bottom of his heart, that I, helplessly, at the very bottom of mine, resisted him with all my strength” (Baldwin 78). David is unwilling to admit his homosexualty because he perceives such a thing to be wrong. Even at a young age when David had an encounter with a boy named joey who was the same age as him “my own body suddenly seemed gross and crushing and the desire which was rising in me seemed monstrous. But, above all, I was suddenly afraid. It was borne in on me: But Joey is a boy . I saw suddenly the power in his thighs, in his arms, and in his loosely curled fists. The power and the promise and the mystery of that body made me suddenly afraid” (Baldwin 15). His origins as an american prevent him from having anything close to real and true love. He is pretending to be something he is not to avoid his desires. But at the same time he feels as though he cannot live without it, because that is what American social constructs have taught