Interpretation Paper
AML2020 professor: David Hennessy
student: Dany M. Lopez
Self-perception of the protagonists in Paul's Case by Willa
Cather and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Let’s compare the respective protagonists in these works according to the three stages of self-perception. First, there is sensitization and awareness when an individual begins to either feel or have homosexual desires but they are not well understood. Then, it is followed by the recognition and acceptance yet some people may not experience this phase. Finally, and perhaps in none of the cases, the integration of their sexual orientations in their new personal identities. Let’s also consider the background and the historical time of both authors Willa Cather and James Baldwin, so we can see that between theirs there were not marked differences to be highlighted.
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Cather was based on a real fact that she lived, and here she shows a young man who lived for beauty and thought the money could save him from the everyday boredom.
Paul is seen by his teacher as a weirdo. For him, both school and home are boring and depressing. Real life is in the theater where he works as an usher.
Giovanni's Room focuses the story of David, an American who has been trying to escape his own homosexuality from a difficult experience of youth. That night, the narrator describes as the most terrible of his life dedicated to narrate some remote events, such as his first affair and the relationship with his father.
This story is set in the 50s. David is a man of middle class that feels cornered by his father expectations, like everyone else, in which a child becomes a man , get a wife, and make a family. David was not clear whether it mattered or not, and ran away from the family in search of freedom. He then found himself trapped in the non-acceptance of his