The Queer Innocence of James Baldwin in Giovanni\u27s Room

I am investigating a “queer innocence” which I read through Baldwin\u27s novel Giovanni\u27s Room. The queerness of it comes from its refusal to remain tied to childhood, to the past. I will be examining the factors which traditionally are figured oppositionally to innocence: shame, guilt, knowledge and desire. By representing a loss of innocence as “perpetually recurring,” Baldwin frames innocence itself as repetitive. It is not something which is simply lost, it can be found again. If the novel is suggesting that innocence is not just to be lost, but to be found and experienced again, then how do the elements listed above contribute to David\u27s experience of innocence? And what is the result of perpetually recurring death of innocence? As innocence connotes a younger self, we are introduced to multiple younger Davids through his narrative, and while this is greatly due to the use of memory and the past tense voice, I believe it is the present tense voice which allows us to distinguish between our multiple narrators, and which allows Giovanni\u27s Room to take on the depth of dealing with this fracturing of narrative and narrator