Essay Sample on Psychoanalytical Criticism of Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin

Darkness is arguably the most prominent symbol in Sonny's Blues. It is only for a brief moment towards the end of the story, when the band members perform on the stage, that a new kind of light is seen. This transition can be interpreted by looking at the time and place where the story is set. The time places the story right at the heart of the civil rights movement. On the other hand, Harlem, the place where the story is set, played a critical role in catapulting the conversation on black identity to the national arena. Baldwin was also born and raised in Harlem. As such, an exploration of the narrator's/author's emotions can offer more insight into the story and the motive behind it. Freud advanced a theory that forms the basis of psychoanalytic criticism. He argued that literary texts are an expression of the author's secret unconscious anxieties and desires (Gross 80). Using this approach, therefore, one can see Baldwin's psychological conflicts, unresolved emotions, ambivalence, and guilt in the story. His traumas can also be seen in the behaviors of the characters. In this light, this paper seeks to carry out a psychoanalytic criticism of Sonny's Blues to determine what the author's conscious mind repressed. In particular, the paper will seek to determine how his stay in Harlem influenced the story.

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A Peep into the Story

Written in 1957, Sonny's Blues is set in 1950s Harlem. The narrator is an algebra teacher, who learns of the arrest of his younger brother, Sonny, for possession and use of heroin while preparing to start his class. Through flashbacks, the narrator tells of his brother's addiction, arrest, and recovery, as well as other tragedies he has faced, such as the death of his daughter, uncle, and mother. He also worries that his students might end up just like Sonny someday. The death of the narrator's daughter, Grace, prompts him to start communicating with Sonny in prison, and constant communication develops. Through a flashback, the reader also learns that in the early years, the narrator was not concerned about his brother until their mother died. Sonny appears as an isolated figure, who constantly fights with his family. Besides, the family does not support his passion for music which leads to further differences. The author also experienced such moments of conflict and isolation in his life. For instance, his father forced him to be a preacher in his youth against his will. Baldwin, being gay, was also isolated in Harlem till he moved to Paris. These events undoubtedly, and probably unconsciously, affected the behaviors of the characters in the story. The conflicts persist to the end of the story when the narrator finally gets a glimpse of who Sonny is as he performs with a band on stage. While drugs are a central part of the story, it is also about music, family, and the desire to overcome struggles.

A Look into the Author's Mind

As mentioned earlier, a psychoanalytic criticism of the story will help in laying bare the author's emotions, conflicts, anxieties, and desires. More than any other character, this side of the author is depicted by the narrator. In several ways, the character represents the author. Besides, the story is generally a reflection of the author's life. Born in Harlem at a time when the degradation and destruction of the black culture were rampant, Baldwin used the story, both consciously and subconsciously, as a form of expression to tell the truth of African Americans as an individual and also as a group (LeBaron). Psychoanalysis of the story and its characters, therefore, is a perfect way of digging into the mindset of an African American who lived during the Jim Crows and Civil Rights eras.

Finding His Identity

The fictional brothers in the story, who are struggling to find their most unique form of expression, are a picture of African American life in the 1950s. In very subtle tones, the author uses his experience living this life to depict the oppression, as well as uplift and empower those like him. The paths taken by the narrator and his brother to gain self-expression and acceptance could not be more different. Occasionally, each one of them takes a peek into the other's life and though the narrator does not particularly approve the path taken by Sonny, they finally learn to accept and appreciate each other. The struggle to express and accept oneself is also seen in Baldwin's life. In his early years, his father had forced him into a path he did not like. Rebelling and choosing a different path for himself was his way of seeking to express and accept himself. Moreover, since gays were discriminated against in Harlem at the time, he accepted himself and moved to Paris where his lifestyle was more tolerated (Simon). Therefore, Baldwin might have subconsciously been taking the reader through his personal struggles for acceptance and expression using the characters of the two brothers.

The narrator symbolically represents several layers of the African American life that the author might have seen and even experienced. For instance, the narrator reads of Sonny's arrest in an underground train. Through this, the writer presents to the reader, the invisibility in which he and the members of his community lived in. Living in Harlem, their lives were either unseen or unacknowledged by the larger society. However, regardless of the invisibility, they were able to adapt, survive, and create their own identities. The struggles that Sonny goes through are an expression of what the author had to go through in his quest to find his identity (Simon). After going through drug addiction and prison, his musical dream seems to be falling in place towards the end of the story. This can be taken to represent a fruitful pursuit of his identity. Sonny's departure from the old Jazz music loved by his brother to a new genre also represents his thirst for self-identity. Moreover, through music, Sonny succeeds in expressing himself to his brother. Through music, the narrator does not only understand Sonny's struggles but also his own.

Living in Darkness

The darkness that the author depicts in the story represents the difficult conditions he grew up in. While Harlem had been a better place during the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, and the Great Depression saw the town sink into poverty and sorrow. These conditions are seen throughout the story. The narrator and his family still live in the same housing projects that he had grown up in. His children, therefore, are bound to lead the same kind of life that he had growing up. This sentiment is captured when the narrator claims, "He'll know too much too soon, about what is going to happen to him" (Baldwin and Kirby 131). Though the narrator has tried to do everything right and turn around his fortunes, his circumstances do not seem to change. Though he has served in the army, completed college, and has a pretty respectable job, the fortunes of his family remain unchanged. As he says at the start of the story, he is "trapped in the darkness that roared outside" (Baldwin and Kirby 122). The tragedies that the family suffers is also a representation of the difficult life that African Americans lived in Harlem. Therefore, through the behaviors of the characters and the events that befall them, the author gives the reader a view of the life that African Americans led during the 1950s. Since the author experienced this life firsthand, it is no surprise that he paints its darkness, sorrow, and tragedies both consciously and subconsciously.

Harlem served as a trap for thousands of African Americans in the 1950s. The author's use of imprisonment, therefore, represents the sense of entrapment that he and thousands of others felt in Harlem. The two brothers consistently struggle to get out of this trap without much success. Other than Sonny being physically imprisoned, the author uses the term "trapped" severally while describing the neighborhood. The students are also trapped in this prison as evidenced by the narrator's worries that they would end up just like Sonny. Baldwin describes the housing projects, in which he and his family live as "rocks in the middle of a boiling sea" to show that despite the challenges they were facing, the neighborhood was almost inescapable.

The Redemptive Power of Suffering

Baldwin succeeds in presenting the suffering faced by African Americans in Harlem so brilliantly because he shared in this suffering. Aspects of the redemptive potential of suffering are seen in other characters in the story. At first, the narrator bashes the African culture and has a softer spot for the White culture. His struggles are majorly informed by his desire to lead a life that resembles the White culture more. For instance, he does not know Charlie Parker, a popular Jazz musician in the African American culture, but easily identifies with singers associated with the white bourgeois culture such as Louis Armstrong. This selfish desire to get assimilated and lead a life that he considered more respectable alienates him from his family and community. For example, he has no compassion for his brother after learning of his imprisonment. However, suffering has a way of uniting the two. For instance, following the death of their mother, the brothers became close momentarily. Also, the death of Grace fills the chasm between them and they begin communicating. This is a depiction of the redemptive potential and humanizing power of suffering. Through suffering, one understands the suffering of the other better. Suffering creates a sense of true compassion and allows people to humanize each other, as evidenced by the thawing of the frosty relationship between the brothers. Having gone through the same experience, therefore, Baldwin manages to present the suffering of people in Harlem humanely and compassionately.

The author also understands the tremendous redemptive potential of art when propagated through art. Sonny's music, for instance, connects the two brothers. Through the story, therefore, Baldwin sought to propagate this redemptive power. Finally, Baldwin's great understanding of the suffering faced by the people in Harlem can be attributed to the fact that he saw the place and its people both from within and outside. This revelation is best seen at the end of the story as the band performs. Creole, the name of the bandleader, alludes to a hybrid of languages. Also, the song that reunites the brothers, Am I Blue, was composed by white artists. Through this, therefore, Baldwin seems to say that to find oneself, one might have to look outside themselves, just like he had.

Conclusion

A psychoanalytic analysis of the story shows the motivations, desires, conflicts, and sufferings faced by Baldwin in his characters. His desire to escape the prison that was Harlem is prevalent throughout the story. His struggles to find his identity and voice are also heavily present. Just like Baldwin found his identity by looking both within and without, Sonny overcomes drugs and prison to finally find his identity and voice.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James and George Kirby. Sonny's Blues. Klett, 1970. https://www.morganparkcps.org/ourpages/auto/2015/3/6/58333212/Sonny_s%20Blues%20PDF%201.pdf

Gross, Alan G. "Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: A Defense." PsyArt Journal 21.5 (2017): 69-85. http://journal.psyart.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/PsyArt-2017-Article-5-AG-Gross-B.pdf

LeBaron, Taylor. "16 November 2017 James Baldwin's: Sonny's Blues A Sociocultural Analysis." (2017). http://www.academia.edu/download/56801977/Nov_16_2017_James_Baldwins_Sonnys_Blues_A_Sociocultural_Analysis.pdf