Existentialism in Giovanni's Room Anonymous 11th Grade

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that is the fact. - Jean-Paul Sartre

In the novel Giovanni's Room, author James Baldwin invites his readers to journey to Paris post-World War II. The San Francisco Chronicle describes this read as, “Violent, excruciating beauty,” highlighting the stark contrast between the 1950’s Paris of American expatriates, to the glittery setting of the first wave of the lost generation. Choosing this a backdrop, Baldwin sets the scene for a highly controversial narrative of death, love, and the complexity of choice. Engulfed in the violence and liaisons of an expatriate society, a young man, David, finds himself, “caught between desire and conventional morality.” Playing upon David’s existential crisis, Baldwin’s Giovanni's Room discovers how heavy the responsibility of acting for one's own freedom truly is.

As defined by Merriam Webster Dictionary (1828), existentialism is, “a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right...