James Baldwin’s Blacks and Blues by Seth

James Baldwin’s Blacks and Blues

The “frog”, that is what people used to call James Baldwin, the author of “Sonny’s Blues” when he was in elementary school. Baldwin, an African American was born in Harlem on August 2, 1924, to Emma Jones, a single mother at the time. Jones later married a Baptist Minister named David Baldwin. James Baldwin never knew his biological father, not even his name. Baldwin was raised in a black religious Christian community. James Baldwin recalls that the church for his adoptive father “was almost literally a way of getting back at white people”. He further added, “and he God would judge them, God would punish them” (Biography.com). Baldwin’s adoptive father considered James as the ugliest kid that he had ever seen. We may say that he was exposed to a world full of hate, oppression, discrimination, and persecution. We may further say it was difficult for him to see love around. Therefore, we may say that this might be one of the reasons of him writing a story about love. A story about two brothers who love each other in different ways.

Some of these issues are identifiable in both the life of James Baldwin and the characters of his story “Sonny’s Blues”. As mentioned earlier, we were introduced to Baldwin’s major family members namely the step-father, mother and how they played to Baldwin’s life. Now let us go the story’s characters. In the story, we can consider that the mother and father in the story are Baldwin’s mother and father in real life. This is more evident from the father. Baldwin’s father as mentioned hated white people. He considers religion as a way to take revenge against white people. Similarly, in the story, the mother narrated about how Sonny’s father sees white people as murderers. The mother said something about their father “every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother” (line 100). We can assume that a part of Baldwin’s life is included in his work, “Sonny’s Blues”. We will see more about this later in this paper. Focusing on Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues”, we will see how the two brothers in the story saw how to live the life differently that resulted in the conflict between the two. As for the rest of the paper, we will go in depth about how the “blues” or “music”, is associated with the black people, how black people use music as a place of refuge, and music paved the way for the two brothers to compromise and understand each other.

            The story started with the narrator’s reaction to what happened to his brother Sonny after reading it from the newspaper. In the story, it says that the teacher read the newspaper repeatedly and that he couldn’t believe what happened to his brother. Furthermore, he illustrated that Sonny became real to him that a great block of ice settled down in his belly slowly melting that sends trickles to his veins (line 2). We can assume that the narrator was puzzled and scared with Sonny’s current condition knowing that he “had been always a good boy” (line 4). We may find this so alarming on the narrator’s side. It’s the kind of feeling when we have a family member whom we would consider someone who would never ever do something seriously dumb or “crazy “or “evil” as the narrator puts it but it actually happened. Furthermore, John Reilly, an author who wrote about the story, said that the narrator reveals along with his decent job as an algebra teacher, had assumed a conventional way of thinking as a defense against recognizing that Sonny ran the risk of “coming to nothing” (p.56). Reilly was trying to say that the narrator was denying the arrest of Sonny that Sonny just started his path to misery, given the fact that he had been a “good boy”. Reilly further added that narrator’s conventional attitude becomes clearer when he met Sonny’s friend (p.56). As their conversation between the two, went on, the friend said that Sonny will go back to his old ways.

            The brother who may have been exhausted with things that happened to Sonny said, “Well I guess it’s none of my business” (line 43). We may assume that he is putting this event of his life aside as the older brother, that he had not communicated to Sonny until the death of her daughter. The narrator’s reaching to Sonny again after a long may be another source of strength of the narrator to relieve the pain he had been carrying since the death of her daughter

            When the two brothers met in New York, the older brother’s feelings about Sonny when the brother met Sonny’s nameless friend, came back when they were having dinner. The brother’s anxiety was to hear Sonny that he was safe (line 79). The narrator suddenly had a flashback of their father said that there “ain’t no place safe for the kids” (line 80). This cry of the father could be understood better when the mother told the untold story of the father’s brother. The father’s brother which is Sonny’s uncle was murdered by white people in a white car one night on their way home. We may assume that the father, felt paranoid since the death of his brother that he felt unsafe in the world they are living. This event led to the mother’s plea to “hold on to” Sonny and to “let him know you’s there” (line 106). This basically means to look after Sonny. Reilly argued, that failing to fulfill her mother’s request and a sense of shared loneliness partially explain the narrator’s brother feeling toward Sonny. We may assume that this could be the reason why the older brother is bossy in the way he introduces his view of how Sonny he should live his life again. We may assume that he blamed himself for Sonny’s conviction to jail that he didn’t fulfill the request of her mother. Furthermore, we may say that this was the cause of his conventional thinking that he felt somewhat a failure due to Sonny’s arrest.  

            At this point, the brother was not fully aware yet of the racism happening around him. All that he knows was just to make sure keep his brother safe because her mother asked her so. This leads us to Sonny’s perception of they should live their life together as brothers.  In the story, the narrator describes Sonny as a person who “has never been talkative” (line 77). From that description, we may say that Sonny has never been verbally expressive. Furthermore, we may say that Sonny kept his tender feeling inside of him.

            After the dinner, they had a discussion on how Sonny wanted to do for that time on. The conflict between the two started gradually when Sonny said he wanted to be a musician (line 114). This may somewhat trigger the disappointment of the brother to Sonny, knowing that the brother is an educator. He wanted Sonny to pursue better education (line 144). From this, we may say that the brother was so anxious to help Sonny to get back up on his feet, to make things right again through education.  But this wasn’t Sonny really wanted to do he wanted to be in the field of music. They ended up living with Isabel family and Sonny went to school and practiced piano at the same time. Suzy Goldman, an author who wrote about Baldwin’s work, argued that the narrator thinks that he is taking care of Sonny by forcing him to live with Isabel’s family (p. 232). Elaine Ognibene, another author, argued that the brother developed an attitude of “see things in my way or not at all” (Ognibene p.37).

            From that event, Sonny finally decided ran away from Isabel’s family and joined the Navy. We can assume that Sonny couldn’t stand it anymore. He had been answering the first question his brother asked after he went out of jail, what he “wanted to do?” (line 111). We can rephrase the question of the brother to Sonny “what do you want to do to help you back up?”. Sonny had been answering that ever since he played piano at Isabel’s house.  We may also assume that the brother and his wife’s family couldn’t understand Sonny is that he is “never been talkative” (line 79). In addition to that, we may say that Sonny cannot eloquently say what he really feels. This might also be the reason why we couldn’t win the conversation with his brother Furthermore, we may assume that music is the only way for him to express himself and to move forward. Sonny just wanted to get “out of Harlem” (line 156). That is how Sonny thought how he should live his life again after his life in the jail at the same time being unaware of the request of the mother to his older brother to take care of him.

            In history we can recall that African-Americans were used to be slaves. In every aspect of their lives were restricted. They were persecuted, hated, and treated like farm animals. Can we imagine the pain that they have endured through those time? Moving on, they used music as a solace, community building during the enslavement. Community building means a way to build morale among the people. It means that you are not alone and that you are standing shoulder to shoulder with others. It was their only way of expressing themselves. We can assume this to be true in their race through the story when Sonny watched the preachers in the neighborhood singing and the most classic on which was when Sonny played with other musicians in the latter part of the story where the brother learned the true meaning of the “Blues”. Creole who seems to be the owner of the nightclub told what the “Blues” was all about to the brother. He said, “for while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it is the only light we’ve got in all this darkness” (line 238). We have discussed that black people have been enduring the dark world they are living in. A world full of hatred and war. A world that doesn’t seem to be fair. Therefore, they used music hold up and lift up one another to be able to survive this dark world.

            Now we see that the two has different views of how they should live their lives in the world they are living. The older brother wanted Sonny to continue his education, but this is contrary to what Sonny wanted. He wanted to be in the field of music. Though they different opinions of how they should live we may assume that they had one purpose which to watch after each other. This different led them to miscommunication until the final part of the story when Sonny invited his brother to watch him play at nightclub downtown, where the musicians were black people. With this event the brother got to discover two things; the real life of black people in the darkness and Sonny’s unexpressed sufferings within him that was majestically expressed under his finger through the piano. Furthermore, he understood where Sonny is coming from when Creole what Blues really means. Because of this, the brother became more aware of the darkness in where Sonny was living.  The older brother learned an important lesson in life which is to listen. When he finally learned this he described how he felt he said, “freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did” (line 240). We may also say that the brother was also living in his own darkness made by himself. A darkness which was motivated by love but was confused with his inner ego. Furthermore, we see that both of them obtained both of them have been looking for since then. Thus, music acted as a mediator for the two to meet in the middle and understood one another.

           

Works Cited

Ognibene, Elaine R. “Black Literature Revisited: ‘Sonny's Blues,’” The English Journal, vol.60, no.1, 1971, pp. 36-37, http://www.jstor.org.byuh.idm.oclc.org/stable/813336. Accessed 22 May 2018.

Reilly, John M. “‘Sonny's Blues’: James Baldwin's Image of Black Community”.  Negro American Literature Forum, vol. 4, no. 2, 1970, pp. 56-60, http://www.jstor.org.byuh.idm.oclc.org/stable/3041352. Accessed 22 May 2018.

Goldman, Suzy Bersntein “James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: A Message in Music”, Negro American Literature Forum, vol. 8, no. 3, 1974, pp231-233, http://www.jstor.org.byuh.idm.oclc.org/stable/3041461. Accessed 22 May 2018.

Biography.com. A&E Television Networks, LLC. January 19, 2018, https://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635. Accessed 22 May 2018.