Cry for help

“‘But I’m a man,’ I cried, ‘a man! What do you think can happen between us?’” Giovanni’s Room, page 142

This cry from David sums up everything that he believes and remained silent about. David does not believe that anything can “happen” between two men. Regardless of the fact that David has been living with Giovanni for months, sharing everything, he still refuses to believe that two men can have a life together. In fact, it is not that he refuses to believe it, so much as that he cannot fathom it as a possibility. 

In the pages surrounding this outcry and the fight between David and Giovanni, it is infinitesimally more evident that David can only see living a normal life as a man being with a woman. He makes himself believe that he truly loves Hella, and is turned off by the thought of Giovanni as anything of importance. He cringes away from the thought of Giovanni, and shuts down. He feels nothing because he is afraid to- afraid to acknowledge what is so blatantly obvious: that he loves Giovanni.