BLU Anthology and Giovanni's Room

In having read the books of BLU Anthology and Giovanni’s Room I have been able to reflect and get two main ideas that the authors have portrayed as messages to the audience. These two books show a lot of being same sex attracted. One of the messages that I have found is a big part of these two books is that society has a big influence in what happens to the characters. The other message is that people have an internal conflict in accepting their own sexual identity. These two messages are portrayed in these two stories and we are able to see how they make the stories more interesting.

The way in which society has a big influence in what happens to the characters is shown in Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin because it shows that David and Giovanni both have to hide in order so that they would not be discovered. This is a big deal because it shows that sometimes we are afraid of what society has to say and so we have to find a way to hide our real self. The other story that I feel that shows this same idea is in the BLU Anthology in the story of “Blessed Assurance.” This story shows this when the dad wants to send his son away because he does not wants anyone to find out that his son is homosexual. The father is the one that worries about what society would say and he does not want anyone to find out.

The other idea that I felt was brought out was the one of characters feeling internal conflict in accepting their own sexual identity. This idea is shown a lot in Giovanni’s Room with David because he really does not know what he wants with his life and cannot accept the fact that he likes men. In the BLU Anthology it is also shown in the story of “Vanishing Rooms” because Lenny cannot accept his own homosexual feelings. The way he does this is by beating on a guy who his friends believed that touched him so that he could feel better and not worry about his homosexual feelings. In this idea you are able to see that people have a problem with the person that they truly are.

In both of these ideas a lot of who the character really is because it brings out the person more and we are able to get to know them. These ideas give more to the book because it makes them more interesting and I actually enjoy reading it. In this two you are also able to see that we really get a lot from a character because of some of these ideas.