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WORKSHOPS » FICTION » JAMES BALDWIN, "SONNY'S BLUES" » EXPLORATIONS
James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"
BIOGRAPHY
Reading » Re-Reading » Explorations
James Baldwin and Harlem
Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s (when James Baldwin was growing up there) was a strong though beleaguered community with memories of the glory days of the Harlem Renaissance of literature, art, and music. Music, religion, and family played especially strong roles in the community, as they did for Baldwin personally.
Read about the Harlem Renaissance. You might consult these online bibliographies and then locate the specified resources in your library:
- The Harlem Renaissance, a comprehensive timeline and good information on the authors.
- A bibliography of Harlem Renaissance writers, artists, and musicians. From the Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies (CEPACS), housed at Georgetown University
Or explore the texts and contexts of the Harlem Renaissance more fully online at one of these sites:
How does your reading of these materials affect your understanding of "Sonny's Blues"? What can the story reveal about this world that you do and do not find in these sources?
Comparison with other works
"Sonny's Blues" can be read in conjunction with other texts in your anthology with interesting results. For example, it shares the crucial theme of music with Gwendolyn Brooks's "First Fight. Then Fiddle" (p. 1054 LIT and p. 802 LIT Shorter); Michael Harper's "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" (p. 1008 LIT and p. 762 LIT Shorter); and Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Sympathy" (p. 1260 LIT and p. 974 LIT Shorter). Other connections can be made with Brooks's "We Real Cool" (p. 881 LIT and p. 658 LIT Shorter); Langston Hughes's "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)" (p. 1175 LIT and p. 908 LIT Shorter) and "Theme for English B" (p. 1277 LIT and p. 983 LIT Shorter); Claude McKay's "America" (p. 1174 LIT); Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" (p. 1261 LIT and p. 974 LIT Shorter); and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (p. 1869 LIT and p. 1477 LIT Shorter), which was completed two years after "Sonny's Blues."
As you explore an idea or image in "Sonny's Blues," draw comparisons with some of these works. You might also consider whether the dates of publication and the state of racial relations at the time might have influenced these works.
Interpretations and issues
James Baldwin, in an interview with Wolfgang Binder, said this about why he wrote "Sonny's Blues": "I grew up with music, you know, much more than with any other language. In a way the music I grew up with saved my life. Later in my life I met musicians, and it was a milieu I moved in so much more than the literary milieu, because when I was young there wasn't any. So that I watched and learned from various musicians in the streets." This lecture by Anne Fleischmann and Andy Jones provides a broader historical context in which to understand Baldwin's strong connection to music.
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