James Baldwin

«Sonny’s Blues»

Pre-reading questions

1. What do you remember about African American literature from the lecture?

Frederick Douglass's autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
(1845) about African American slaves - contains an introduction by the leader of the abolitionists (the
movement for the freedom of blacks in the United States) - William Lloyd Harry, who emphasized the
authenticity of Douglass' stories. Likewise, Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), the
first slave story written by an African American woman.
Olaudah Equiano wrote what some scholars consider the prototypical slave tale, The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). This form of autobiography gained popularity in the
nineteenth century because it provided realistic first-hand evidence against the institution of slavery. At the
age of eleven, the writer was kidnapped and sold into slavery. His account details both the atrocities of the
passage from Africa to the Americas and his conversion to Christianity.

2. What were the antecedents of African American literature?

African American literature dates back to the first arrival of African slaves in the New World in 1639,
when they created their own literature. This work is based on the African-American folk tradition. This
tradition includes oral expressions that existed before African slaves could read and write in English. Sacred
elements — such as spirituals, gospels, and sermons — offered images of God who would avenge oppressed
slaveholders and save those affected by the institution. Spiritual, working songs, folk tales and sermons
appeared on the plantations of southern slaves in the nineteenth century and gave way to gospel music, blues,
jazz and rap in the twentieth century. These expressive forms were not originally created for mass circulation
but expression of the realities of their daily lives in America. Secular forms such as blues, jazz, songs and
poems, rap, sermons, and folk tales detail the emotional suffering associated with being black and
dispossessed in white America through race and class.

3. Speak about the important themes and motives from early to contemporary in African
American Literature.

Slave Narratives
African American folk tradition informs African American literature about slavery and freedom. The
main themes of this period are resistance to tyranny and devotion to human dignity. African-American authors
during this period questioned the institution of slavery, they became more familiar with the teachings of the
Holy Bible. These writers identified literacy with freedom. With the rise of writing, African-American
authors turned to the traditional Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of mankind as a way to challenge the
morality of slavery.

4. What do you know about Harlem Renaissance? + 6. Please name some important figures of
AfAmlit.

Writers in the post-reconstruction period initiated the New Negro Renaissance, also known as the
Harlem Renaissance.
The completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 helped transform the American border
from one of the smallest cities into one of the city's urban centres. One such centre was New York City, home
to many publishers and a shelter for African Americans seeking to escape Jim Crow's restrictive laws,
which contributed to discrimination in the South. Many African Americans settled in the Harlem area of New
York, originally created to house white middle- and upper-middle-class white people. The popularity of jazz,
blues and dance aroused interest in African American culture.
In literature, African-American writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston elevated
African American folk culture to art. Hughes' poem The Weary Blues (1925) was the first to use the basic form
of the blues. His adaptation of traditional poetic poetry to blues forms, as well as experiments with the
African American dialect, gave a new form of rhythmic free verse. Hughes's essay The Negro Artist and the
Racial Mountain (1926) encouraged young writers to explore African-American folk culture. Hurston's
autobiography, The Big Sea (1940), describes the African-American culture of the Harlem Renaissance. Her
anthropological study Mules and Men (1935), the first collection of African-American folk traditions
published by an African-American, was successful. Her most famous work, Their Eyes Were Watching God
(1937), explores the African-American dialect and narrative voice, looking at the image of a mulatto woman
celebrating one woman's triumph over poverty, sexism, and domestic racism.
Poets such as Amiri Baraka combined a tribute to the fictional African homeland with elements of
African American vernacular to create a new form of poetry. Baraki's poem Three Movements and a Coda
(1969) fills in jazz forms and preaching rhythms. Barack also called for revolutionary theater, and his play
The Dutchman (1964) exposes racial stereotypes that deny the division between black and white in America.

5. What are the features of African American literature in the late XX century? + 6. Please name
some important figures of AfAmlit.

 Rise of Black feminism

 Mother-daughter relationship
 Family and community
 Rural “folk”
 Literature of place, of small towns, homes

THE “BIG THREE” IN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN’S WRITING

African American literature has returned to African American history since the 1970s and focuses on
relationships within the African American community. This period of African American literature
demonstrates the spread of women's writing and literary studies. Writers such as Tony Morrison and Alice
Walker made significant contributions to African American art and literature. Morrison, the first African-
American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, changed America's views on history and literature. Her
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Song of Solomon (1977), recounts through intergenerational relationships an
African-American tale of a group of Africans who were sold into slavery in America, grew wings and returned
to freedom in Africa.
Walker's The Color Purple (1982), a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, examines the structure of a
traditional novel through a series of letters that make up history. Walker explored relationships between
women who succeed despite the harassment they face. Walker and Morrison cover the painful history of
African American slavery.
Maya Angelou is best known for her poetry and memoirs, especially the autobiographical work I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969; movie 1979), which a National Book Award nomination.

7. What do you know about the author?

James Arthur Baldwin is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and human rights activist.
 Having spent his childhood and youth in Harlem and Greenwich Village - in some of the most
disadvantaged areas of New York - Baldwin begins to write about his views and understanding of what is
happening around him. His first publicistic articles are imbued with the spirit of denial of racism reigning
around. That is why, having received an award for his first fiction novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, in 1948
Baldwin left the United States and went to Paris.
Being black and gay in America in the 40s of the XX century, having arrived in France, Baldwin here
takes a breath of fresh air. His main works were written in France, and it is here that Baldwin spends most of
his life. He returned to his homeland only twice and was an active participant in the movement of Martin
Luther King.

Discussion questions:

1. Describe the setting of the story. What do you know about the 1950s Harlem in which the
brothers lived?

Sonny's Blues is set in Harlem in the early 1950s. The city plays a rather important role in the story, as
part of the reason Sonny turns to drugs is to get rid of the feeling that he is trapped by his surroundings. There
are people suffering from poverty, beaten prostitutes walk the streets, young people feel the burden of limited
opportunities. This worries the narrator as well, as he is the one who brings Sonny back to this place, into
danger.
But the action also takes place in the smaller world of Harlem: the nightclub where Sonny plays at the end
of the story. Actually, it's Sonny's hideout. This is a place where he can forget that he is a drug addict, forgets
what is waiting for him outside, immersed in his music. Sonny is kind of a celebrity in the club and the people
there want him to play music.

2. The story is filled with descriptions of anger, abuse, darkness, prostitution and drug- use.
How does the author explain all that? Is there any way out for the majority of inhabitants? Why?

Heroin destroys lives, families and artistic talent. On the other hand, it also offers an escape from the
characters' oppressive spiritual and physical environment, helping them cope with the human suffering that
surrounds them. While Baldwin does not condemn characters who use drugs, he does present drug addiction as
destructive. The world they live in is afflicted with darkness, despair, drugs and restrictions. The Narrator and
Sonny are both looking for a form of escape not only from the world, but from themselves.
The narrator repeatedly notes the fury of the people around him to show both the internal and external
conflicts of the characters. Rage and fury are not only the result of the limited opportunities at the time for
African Americans, but also of life in Harlem.

Comment on the narrator’s words on p. 123: «These boys now were living as we’d been living then,
they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their
possibilities».

By describing his students, the narrator tries to explain the pain of racism and the limitations of African
Americans. His students are growing up. Like Sonny, they are becoming more and more aware of the
limitations placed on their lives.

3. How is the narrator related to Sonny?

They are brothers.

4. What has happened to Sonny, and how did the narrator learn about it?
 He read the newspaper and finds out about his brother Sonny, who was arrested for selling heroin. He is
met at the school gate by one of Sonny's old friends, a drug addict who has come to tell him about Sonny's
imprisonment.

5. Describe the narrator and his brother. In which way are they similar, in which are they
different?

The narrator is the voice of reason. He tries to get Sonny to think about his future and he actually
becomes Sonny's father after their parents pass away. Although he doesn't really understand Sonny and his
passion for music, deep down he cares about Sonny's best interests. We could argue that he dumps Sonny when
Sonny needs him the most. And perhaps, as Sonny suspects, the narrator is upset that Sonny has chosen a life
different from his own (Sonny - having created music, and the narrator - having created his family).

6. What is the narrator’s attitude to Sonny?

The narrator's mother, having assigned him to look after Sonny, asks him to serve as his brother's
watchman. After the death of their mother, Sonny's life was marred by prison and drug abuse. The narrator
turns his back on his brother and initially doesn't answer Sonny while he is in jail. He failed to fulfill his
mother's request to look after his brother, but this setback is temporary. Towards the end of the story, the
narrator takes Sonny to his house. He finally takes on the role of his brother's watchman, watching over Sonny.

7. What happened to the narrator’s uncle many years ago, and how did he get to know that?

The narrator's mother explains that his father had a brother who was killed when drunk white men ran
him over with their car.

8. Describe Sonny’s life after his mother’s death.

After their mother dies, Sonny seems to be trying to decide what to do; where he fits emotionally when he
tells his brother he wants to play jazz. His brother tells him that he can't make a living at it.

9. Why do people use drugs according to this text? Support your answers with quotations.

Heroin destroys lives, families and artistic talent. On the other hand, it also offers an escape from the
characters' oppressive spiritual and physical environment, helping them cope with the human suffering that
surrounds them.
Yet it had happened and here I was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, every one of them
for all I knew, be popping off needles every time they went to the head. Maybe it did more for them than
algebra could. - The narrator feels the futility of trying to teach math in a school to a group of kids who may
never make it out of Harlem. Even he can admit that there might be something more pleasant about drugs for
them..

10. The 2 brothers have chosen 2 ways of escaping Harlem’s reality. What are these ways?

Compared to most men in his society, the narrator has done well: he has a wife, two children, and a good
job as a teacher.
Sonny's only salvation is his music, through which he can express all his longing and disappointment.
 11. The end of the story reveals Baldwin’s vision of the role of art. What do you think the ending
could possibly mean?
Art plays an important role as a bridge between separated brothers. Music becomes a channel through
which Sonny can make others understand him.

11. There are several major themes in the story. Can you define them?

The idea of brotherly love extends not only to the relationship between the narrator and Sonny, but to
society as a whole. Harlem suffers from drugs, poverty and frustration, but the members of the community
come together. Adults spend the Sabbath telling stories, keeping children warm and protected.
Sonny's use of drugs is one way to alleviate suffering. He describes the feeling of heroin as something
that makes him feel "alienated" and "in control of himself". Thus, Sonny turned to drugs to get rid of the feeling
that the suffering in his life was beyond his control. His drug use ends up adding to his suffering.
Sonny's music is a more sophisticated example of pain relief. While the narrator initially sees the music
as a way to evade his duties for Sonny. Eventually, he realizes that Sonny's music fuels his life; for Sonny, this
is a way to make his suffering meaningful, and without it, he is likely to fall into despair.
Racism is the main theme of the work. As a result of local and federal segregationist policies, these
projects represent the impact of racism on an oppressed community. Much of the darkness and misery in the
story mentioned can be attributed to the consequences of racism; the narrator speaks of suffering as something
that is passed down from one generation to the next in the African American community.

14. Can this story be considered postmodern? Give arguments to support your answer.

Baldwin's sense of postmodern alienation as an African-American, homosexual, and self-taught

intellectual is reflected in the text (most vividly in Sonny's image, I think).

15. Comment on the following lines. What is your attitude to the dilemma expressed? «But what I
don’t seem to make you understand is that it’s the only thing I want to do». «Well, Sonny», I said gently,
«you know people can’t always do exactly what they want to do - » «No, I don’t know that», said Sonny,
surprising me. «I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?»

Even though the narrator cannot understand it, music feeds his brother's soul and helps him to cope with
personal suffering. With this statement Sonny seems to be searching for the place he physically and spiritually
belongs, as if playing his music will take him deep inside where the real Sonny lives.

Stylistic analysis

What can we assume about the man who the narrator meets at the beginning of the story judging
from his speech? Support your arguments with examples from the text.
The narrator is repulsed by Sonny's friend who always asks him for money; however, he greets him, they
talk about Sonny. Sonny's friend muses that he should have killed himself long ago, and the narrator agrees.
Immediately afterwards, he feels guilty and tries to turn the conversation back to Sonny's fate. As they approach
the subway station, Sonny's friend asks the narrator for money. Feeling compassion, the narrator hands him five
dollars.
Discuss the imagery of the short story. The opposition of darkness and light in the text. What do the
images of light and darkness represent in the following passages:
a) when the narrator describes how the high-school students were losing their innocence:
«They were filled with rage. All they've really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which
was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other
darkness…»
As his students approach adulthood, they realize how limited their options will be. The narrator laments
that many of them may already be using drugs, like Sonny, and that perhaps the drugs will do "more than
algebra could" for them. The bleakness of the TV screens suggests that the entertainment has taken the boys'
attention away from their own lives.
b) p. 131: «And when the light fills up the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that
every time this happens he's moved just a little closer to that darkness outside. The darkness outside is what
the old folks have been talking about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure».
The sense of prophecy here—the certainty of "what will happen"—shows resignation to the inevitable.
Old people turn to darkness with silence because they can't do anything about it.
c) About Sonny’s face: «…his face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it»; p. 141
«The coppery sun brought out the copper in his skin, he was very faintly smiling».
James Baldwin is describing someone who is African-American. So "copper" here means bringing out a
reddish/yellowish/coppery colour of dark skin.

Vocabulary practice

Find in the text, translate within the context the following words:

1) copper; his face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it - обличчя його було
світлим і щирим з мідно-червоним відтінком.
2) peddling; He had been picked up for peddling and using heroin - Його затримали за дрібну
торгівлю та вживання героїну
3) horse; I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn't have been much older
than these boys - Я був впевнений, що коли Сонні вперше спробував героїн, він не міг бути
набагато старшим за цих хлопців
4) vindictively; to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed - до тієї іншої
темряви, і в якій вони тепер мстиво мріяли
5) denigrate; its intent was to denigrate - його метою було звести наклеп.
6) cunning; he looked at me, partly like a dog, partly like a cunning child - він дивився на мене то
як собака, то як хитра дитина.
7) shuffle over to; He sort of shuffled over to me - Він якось приволочив ноги до мене
8) repulsive; It made him repulsive and it also brought to mind what he'd looked like as a kid - Це
зробило його огидним, а також нагадало, як він виглядав у дитинстві
9) kinked hair; he showed up the dirt in his kinked hair - показав бруд у його заплутаному
волоссі
10) funky; He smelled funky – від нього смерділо
11) loitering; a couple of lads still loitering in the courtyard - декілька хлопців все ще тиняються
у дворі
12) to duck; We were in front of a bar and he ducked slightly - Ми стояли перед баром, і він трохи
пригнувся\прихилився
13) battered; still-struggling woman beneath the battered face - все ще жінка, що бореться, під
розбитим обличчям напівповії
14) quicksilver; the dark, quicksilver barmaid - темненька, яскрава барменша (барвумен)
15) menace; the dark, quicksilver barmaid, with menace - темна, яскрава барвумен, із погрозою.
16) chasm; difference in our ages lay between us like a chasm - різниця у віці була між нами як
прірва
17) to be hipped on; he'd been all hipped on the idea of going to India - він був одержимий ідеєю
поїхати до Індії
18) covertly; as I covertly studied Sonny's face - коли я таємно вивчав обличчя Сонні
19) run-down; being always kind of frisky, decided to run down this hill - будучи завжди прудким,
вирішив спуститися з цього пагорба
20) malice; I wasn't doing it out of malice - я робив це не зі зла
21) grunt; my father grunted, whenever Mama suggested trying to move to a neighborhood - мій
батько бурчав щоразу, коли мама пропонувала спробувати переїхати в район
22) the apple of one’s eye; Sonny was the apple of his father's eye – Сонні був улюбленцем свого
батька\батько беріг Сонні як зіницю ока
23) easy chair; would be sitting in the easy chair - сидів би у м'якому кріслі
24) kinfolk; what's happened to them and their kinfolk - що трапилося з ними та їхніми родичами
25) endure; It's what they come from. It's what they endure. - Це те, з чого вони походять. Це те,
що вони терплять.
26) frisky; being always kind of frisky - будучи завжди прудким\активним
27) whoop; they let out a great whoop and holler - вони підняли великий ґвалт (вигук) та крик
28) holler; they let out a great whoop and holler - вони підняли великий ґвалт (вигук) та крик
29) defiance; Looking at me with a land of mocking, amused defiance - Дивлячись на мене з
глузливим і задоволеним/здивованим викликом/зневагою/неслухом
30) to be afflicted by; They began, in a way, to be afflicted by this presence - У якомусь сенсі вони
почали страждати від цієї присутності.
31) joint; I'm going to sit in with some fellows in a joint - Я збираюся посидіти з хлопцями у
притоні.

Translation exercises (in written form)

Translate the following sentences:

1. One boy was whistling a tune, at once very complicated and very simple, it seemed to be pouring
out of him as though he were a bird, and it sounded very cool and moving through all that harsh,
bright air, only just holding its own through all the other sounds. (Один хлопчик насвистував
мелодію, одночасно дуже складну і дуже просту, вона ніби лилася з нього, як із птаха, і
звучала дуже прохолодно і рухалася по всьому цьому терпкому, прозорому повітрі, що
ледве стримувало себе крізь решту всіх звуків)

2. And now, even though he was a grown-up man, he still hung around that block, still spent hours
on the street corners, was always high and raggy. (І тепер, незважаючи на те, що він був уже
дорослим чоловіком, він усе ще тинявся тим кварталом, все ще годинами тинявся по
кутках, завжди був під кайфом і обідраним.)

3. The juke box was blasting away with something black and bouncy and I half watched the
barmaid as she danced her way from the juke box to her place behind the bar. (У музичному
автоматі гуркотіло щось чорне та пружинисте/стрибаюче, і я підглядав за барменшою,
поки вона протанцювала шлях від музичного автомата до свого місця за барною стійкою.)

4. The beat-looking grass lying around isn’t enough to make their lives green, the hedges will never
hold out the streets, and they know it. (Трави, схожої на витоптану, що лежить навколо,
 недостатньо, щоб зробити їхнє життя зеленим, живоплоти ніколи не втримають вулиці, і
вони це знають.)

5. For he had graduated, in the time I had been away from dancing to the juke box to finding out
who was playing what, and what they were doing with it, and he had bought himself a set of
drums. (Тому що він закінчив навчання, поки я не танцював під музичний автомат і не
з'ясовував, хто на чому грає і що вони роблять, і він купив собі барабанну установку)