Suhaila Islam
FIQWS HA9
Professor Von Uhl
9/12/2021
How a Racist Society Pushes Sonny back in Life
Systemic racism and discrimination against black people has been seen across America for centuries now. The injustice that is disturbingly present is unacceptable. The system is built to protect people who look like what society wants them to, which is white. When an individual looks different, speaks another language, or even has different struggles society dislikes that because it is viewed as not the norm. People of color grow up with the knowledge that they will never have the privilege that white people have. They know that life will be harder because of their race. All of these challenges can drive an individual to the brink of losing themselves, and their values. According to the ideas of Freud, these conflicts between reality and desire force individuals to create fantasies that allow them to stay mentally stable in a cruel world. However, some individuals possess an artistic gift, which allows them to express themselves constructively without the need to create fantasies. Throughout the short story “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin uses Freud’s concept of artistic gift and identification, in addition to external conflicts and drug addiction to argue that Sonny was born into a society that is built against black people.
This short story takes place in Harlem, a low-income predominantly black neighborhood in New York City during the late 1950s. It is clear that Sonny and his family faced different forms of racism and discrimination throughout their lives. Sonny’s uncle was unjustifiably killed in a hit and run by white men who were driving drunk (Baldwin, 8). Sonny’s father was left traumatized by the remembrance of his own brother’s death. The pain that the loss of his brother caused, changed his mindset and feelings towards white people from a positive one to a rapidly increasing hatred (Baldwin, 8 ). This view that his father has on white people is depicted clearly in the text where Sonny’s mother says “Oh, yes. Your Daddy never did really get right again. Till he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother” (Baldwin,8). These are painful deaths for Sonny and his family, and it shows readers that black Americans have a much darker and tougher life because they are pushed down by the hands of racist America. Joel Alden Schlosser makes it clear in “Socrates in a Different Key: James Baldwin and Race in America” that Baldwin’s critique and discussion on racism is seen across his other works of literature such as Nobody knows my Name where “Baldwin argues, most Americans live under the delusion of a world untarnished by racial hatred and the effects of white supremacy-they live unexamined lives” (Schlosser, 489). So, at the end of the day, color does matter in the eyes of society. The racism people of color face is a disease that they are handed by the system in this country.
Sonny’s struggles with growing up black in a racist America drove him to drugs because of his dark reality. This idea is depicted in the story where Baldwin writes:
They were filled with rage. All these boys 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, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone. (Baldwin 1)
Growing up in Harlem changed many of these kids, including Sonny, but it was out of their control. Some fall into the wrong crowd, and others such as Sonny need to find a way to escape from hardships in their life. His descent into substance abuse can be explained using the arguments presented in “Troubled reading: ‘Sonny’s blues’ and empathy” written by Eva Kowalska. She writes that “The essence of Baldwin’s story is the creative production engendered by personal suffering, in the form of drug addiction” (Kowalska, 4). The racism and discrimination he was forced to endure made him view heroin as an escape from his reality of being judged and wronged because of the color of his skin.
The racist society that many people have grown up in portrays addicts as individuals who are self-sabotaging. However, this self-sabotage is the result of years of damaging trauma and endless obstacles an individual has had to maneuver around throughout their life. His addiction can be further analyzed with the Freudian concepts of the id, the ego, and the superego. Freud expresses in his lectures that the id is our inner hidden desires that are unconscious, and the super-ego gives everyone the feeling to tell right from wrong (Freud 2237). The ego serves three masters which include the id, the super-ego, and the external world (Freud 2237). In the story, it is revealed to readers that Sonny wants to join the army in an attempt to stop doing drugs. The only way he can do that is by leaving the environment that turned him into an addict (Baldwin 11). Sonny joins the army as a method to overcome his addiction and quit. This action can be perceived as Sonny’s ego mediating the conflict at hand which is his addiction. His id is the desire to do drugs in the first place, and his ego is trying to make society accept him as both an addict and a person of color in this world. It can be presumed that Sonny’s super-ego is the strict voice in the back of his head guilting him for turning to drugs. Now, although the id, ego, and super-ego are just concepts that are not considered real, they still represent the conflict Sonny undergoes between the external world and himself.
Initially, Sonny channels the hurt he feels into drugs, but later conveys it through his music (Baldwin 9). Kowalska argues in her article that “Jazz seems to be the most appropriate way for Sonny to voice his troubled sense of self. It functions as the figurative, creative language which, as a medium, is truest to its raw material” (Kowalska,4). Sonny communicates his struggle with growing up discriminated against by playing jazz on the piano. This expression of music is identified as what Freud calls an artistic gift. Freud states in his lecture that someone who “possesses an artistic gift can transform his phantasies into artistic creations instead of into symptoms. In this manner, he can escape the doom of neurosis and by this roundabout path regain his contact with reality” (Freud 2235). Sonny holds an artistic talent that assists his escape from his hardships.
Enduring the struggles Sonny has faced was much harder because he had only his mother and brother in his life. As seen in Freud’s lectures, a child needs a parent of the same sex to identify with while growing up. Since Sonny grew up without a father, this issue alone put him farther back in life than other people and left him to identify with his older brother instead of his dad. If this identification process is skipped then it negatively affects them, as they get older, because they are skipping a stage in their psychosexual development (Freud 2232). Seeing as Sonny only had his brother, his mom begged his older brother to look out for him, and act as that father figure he needs(Baldwin,9). His mother says “You may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you’s there” (Baldwin 9). This showcases how his mother deeply felt that it was important that her sons stick together and look out for each other in this dark world.
Throughout the short story, Baldwin critiques that Sonny grew up in a racist society; that he, unfortunately, has to use his artistic gift, drug addiction, and relationship with his brother to deal with his reality. Every argument portrayed throughout “Socrates in a Different Key: James Baldwin and Race in America” and Troubled reading: ‘Sonny’s blues’ and empathy”, further support Baldwin’s critique of society throughout Sonny’s Blues. Being black in a racist America, growing up in the projects in Harlem, and coping with the negative effects his skin color has on his life can all be blamed on a flawed society that needs to do better. Sonny turned to drugs because it made him feel better and escape the cruel world he has been forced to grow up in. His music, although beautiful, is also a coping mechanism he resorts to because of societal judgment. All the hurt, loss, and difficulty Sonny has faced throughout his life is due to society’s rejection of people who are not white.
Works Cited Page
Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” Partisan Review, 1957. file:///C:/Users/suhai/Downloads/sonnysbluestext%20(6).pdf
Freud, Sigmund. Five Lectures On Psycho-Analysis. W. W. Norton & Company, 1910. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b446/cfb00094a2e62f82e8c8e430581891ca4e47.pdf?_ga=2.153662776.1893964575.1597526595-1709737971.1597526595
Kowalska, Eva. “Troubled Reading: ‘Sonny’s Blues’ and Empathy.” Literator, vol. 36, no. 1, AOSIS, 2015, pp. e1–e6, https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v36i1.1148.
Schlosser, Joel Alden. “Socrates in a Different Key: James Baldwin and Race in America.” Political Research Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 3, Sage Publications, 2013, pp. 487–99, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912912451352.
