Racism In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

Literature has always been arguably the most potent avenue for African Americans, and indeed all creatures who bear the burden of humanity, to relate the lunacy and unfairness of prejudice as well as demonstrate its devastating effects. Although slave narratives may perhaps be the first example of this kind of literature’s American variant to come to one’s mind, literature of the mid-nineteenth century was no less of a cogent tool for portraying the injustice faced by blacks in a manner meant to elicit indignation and spur social change. One such piece of so-called protest literature is the short story “Sonny’s Blues”, published in 1957. Penned by essayist, novelist, and former child evangelist James Baldwin, this story is about the relationship

Through examination of the text, one can garner a better understanding of the methods James Baldwin used in attempt to answer the aforementioned questions, and how those methods illustrate his take on how the protest narrative should be approached. For instance, an astute reader of “Sonny’s Blues” can determine that in Baldwin’s mind, the author must engineer the lenses through which the reader views the fictional universe as well as the characters who dwell therein for a protest narrative to be successful. In some cases, this requires that the reader view certain characters in a sympathetic light; in others, it requires that they absorb and do not merely gloss over statements highlighting inequality. This is accomplished via the story’s first-person point-of-view, which when coupled with Baldwin’s diction is especially

This is an important because, as Baldwin believed, any protest narrative that denies its characters the full range of human emotions renders them much less lifelike and sympathetic. Throughout the course of the twenty or so pages of “Sonny’s Blues”, the characters are revealed through dialogue to have traits, motives, and fears just like any other human being. For example, Sonny’s revelation to the narrator that he intends to become a jazz musician (Baldwin 1737) and subsequent descriptions of his piano practicing habits (Baldwin 1740) let the reader know that he is not to be thought of as merely a pathetic recovering drug addict. On the other hand, when Sonny says that heroin makes him feel “in control” (Baldwin 1744) and subtly protests the systemic prejudice that often makes black people feel helpless, one can determine that he did not likely take up the drug simply or on a whim or on account of mere peer pressure. Further, when the narrator seems to understand that Sonny is on the path to redemption (Baldwin 1749), the reader once gets the impression that Sonny is more than a