In Giovanni's room by James Baldwin, the protagonist David is grappling with his homosexuality, a part of him that he continually denies and which he subsequently fails to repress. As David grapples with his identity, he searches for and finds himself, his literal image, in mirrors, windows, and other reflective surfaces. This motif symbolizes David's divided life and his growing self-awareness. One of the clearest, and perhaps most touching, examples of this motif is found in the extended metaphor on the first and last pages of the book, where David looks through a window at his reflection on the day of John's execution. These two connected scenes, and his reflection disappearing at dawn, represent the collision of his two selves as his life falls apart, and the ultimate union of the two contrasting versions of David into one broken, but unified man. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThe first reference to this extended metaphor appears almost immediately. Although David is telling the story in flashback, the reader only knows the narrator through what was said at the beginning of the book, and so this first reflection by David represents the David of the exposition (3). This David is completely immersed in heterosexual culture, complete with a boyfriend returning from Spain. His reflection is distinct, tall, and “like a face you have seen many times” (3). Baldwin makes no mistake in describing David's reflection as the easily recognizable trope of the handsome American man. This image of the everyman includes obligatory heterosexuality, and David's reflex, described as having been seen many times, suggests that this reflex is obligatorily heterosexual as a presumed normal state. This description is also intertwined with the narrator seeing Hella in his mind's eye, his anchor in the heterosexual world. The very fact that his reflection is clear to him in the reflection of the window shows the reader that there are two distinct images of David. The one, the obligatorily heterosexual one, has shiny hair and is tall and handsome. The other, the David who speaks in hindsight, is drunk and unhappy. This true first-person narrator, David, is also fully aware that the day to come, and the death of his lover, will be "the most terrible morning of [his] life" (3), fundamentally separating him from his reflection. The scene connects to the very end of the novel, but now the reader fully understands the gravity of the situation which was only hinted at in the exposition; David was irrevocably exposed as homosexual by Hella and her community, and his internalized homophobia resulted in recklessness that directly contributed to his lover's death. Now, “the horizon begins to clear” and David notes, “I seem to vanish before my eyes” (166). The beautiful reflection of his heterosexual fading begins to fade. If the reflection in the window is the idealized version of his life, and the one he had tried so hard to live fully, its disappearance into the bright light is his permanent death. And so, it makes sense that David's false life would be shattered by the light of dawn on the morning of John's death. Now, David is left with only his true self, the one he claims is "boring, white, and dry" (168) when he glimpses it in the mirror. With the disappearance of his reflection, his acceptable other self, David must face the extent of his self-loathing. His internalized homophobia now manifests itself in disgust at seeing his own genitals. He is embarrassed, scared and guilty. Please note: this is just an example. Get an item now.