Quote 1

… it takes a hero to do both. People who remember [their Garden of Eden] court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.

This quote appears in Part One, Chapter 2 in a scene set after Giovanni’s sentencing while David still resides in Paris with Hella. At Jacques’ musing that one never stays in the Garden of Eden, David muses to himself over its significance. Here, the biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden represents one’s innocence. In this context, that innocence may be inferred to be a naïve belief that someone is a heterosexual, and that innocence will inevitably shatter. People are therefore given the option to either remember or forget their innocence, but the rare hero does both. The rare hero is capable of simultaneously remembering their innocence while also forgetting it and therefore living their lives as their true selves. It is unclear which category David falls under by the end of Giovanni’s Room, but the only certainty is that he cannot be classified as a hero. Perhaps the doomed Giovanni is the rare hero in this story, and David serves as the madman who remembers.

Quote 2

And I resented this: resented being called an American (and resented resenting it) because it seemed to make me nothing more than that, whatever that was; and I resented being called not an American because it seemed to make me nothing.

This quote appears in Part Two, Chapter 2 when David muses on his relationship with his identity as an American in Paris. David left the United States because he could not identify with American ideals. This is possibly linked to his experience with Joey and his confusion over his sexuality and masculinity. David could never admit to this identity crisis, though. Giovanni’s reference to David as a true American strikes a nerve in him. David left the United States for a reason, and he doesn’t appreciate being reduced to an oblivious and blundering American. But Giovanni also sometimes says that David is not an American, and this doubly strikes another nerve. Living without the American identity he professes to have escaped makes David feel like he has no identity at all. This feels risky to David, as he might have to internalize and examine who he really is, and it carries nothing but negative implications for him and for his masculine persona. David is unwilling to explore who he truly is if he cannot cling to a basic, wholesome American identity.

Quote 3

I knew it every time we went to bed. If only you had told me the truth then. Don’t you see how unjust it was to wait for me to find it out? To put all the burden on me? I had the right to expect to hear from you—women are always waiting for the man to speak. Or hadn’t you heard?

This quote comes from Hella in Part Two, Chapter 5 as she confronts David over his lies, deceptions, and infidelities. Hella says that she always knew that he was attracted to men. Hella has wasted her time trying to create a life with David. Here she hopes to get David to understand that his lies and secrets only hurt those around him. By trying to insulate himself from his emotions, David has completely failed to understand how he affects those around him. All Hella needed was for David to be forthcoming with the truth so that she might have the agency to decide for herself how she might live her life, but David has robbed her of this agency by lying. Instead of doing what he should have done, he left it to Hella to deduce what has been going on. Hella’s argument highlights exactly why it is so dangerous for people to hide and deny their emotions and sexual identities. The collateral damage is always those closest to us.

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