The Interpretation Of “Sonny’s Blues” Through A Freudian Lens

In America, African Americans face systemic racism in their daily lives. Within the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin in 1957, the consequences of prejudice were shown through the narrator’s family, specifically, Sonny, the father, the uncle, and the mother, by showing the conflicts, grief, and stress they faced because of their skin tone, and the mental consequences from their daily struggles as African Americans can be explained further using Freud’s ideas of repression, sublimation, and artistic gift. 

Throughout history, racism has been a major issue that has had unfortunate consequences. For instance, people of color can be easily harmed or even killed based on their complexion. Simply because white people assume they’re fully entitled along with feeling prevalent, which is a very ignorant mentality. Similarly, the narrator’s mother recounts the tragic story of how his uncle fell victim to a hit-and-run incident. His mother states, “This car was full of white men. They were all drunk, and when they saw your father’s brother they let out a great whoop and holler, and they aimed the car straight at him,” (Baldwin 8). Sadly, playing with someone’s life seems permissible just because they’re from an ethnic minority. Not only did this incident take their uncle’s life, but it also left an open wound in the hearts of the family members especially, the uncle’s brother. For example, the mother states, “I know you never saw your daddy cry. But I did many a time, through all these years. Your daddy never did really get right again. Till the day he died, he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother,” (Baldwin 8). This incident affected more than one person physically and mentally. It cost the uncle’s life and mentally destroyed the uncle’s brother, which traumatized him since he views all white men as the ones that killed his brother. The mother also states “And time your father got downhill, his brother weren’t nothing but blood and pulp” (Baldwin 8). Witnessing his brother’s death is more than enough to destroy him, making him remember the accident every day like it just happened yesterday until he took it to his grave. Consequently, the mother states, “your father always acted like he was the roughest, strongest man on earth. And everybody took him to be like that. But if he hadn’t had me there to see his tears!” as the narrator states, “She was crying again,” (Baldwin 9). In addition to what has been stated, the mother’s feeling of being safe was shattered as she saw the person that she viewed as her backbone, her husband, in a weak state. Hence, racism has a major negative effect on African Americans mentally and physically.

Furthermore, James Baldwin’s social criticism is clear due to the difficulties he depicts towards African Americans: society isn’t designed for African Americans. For example, as he looks at his students in class, he thinks, “They were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. All they really knew was the darkness of their lives which is now closing in on them” (Baldwin 1). Not only is society making it complicated for them, but the struggles they go through in their lives as kids. They are already experiencing conflicts such as racism from a young age, which may have lowered their confidence and shattered their vision of what they are capable of. The use of light is used to illustrate one’s painful quest for an identity while representing the harsh glare of reality that hardens life for African Americans. The narrator also thought, “But houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated the landscape, boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves encircled by disaster.” (Baldwin 5). Connecting this to his previous thought, he’s worried his students won’t have a bright future due to the unjust society that limits their desires based on their complexion. The narrator feels threatened by his environment because he recognizes a social dynamic working through the immediate features of his environment. Therefore, he thinks it’s contagious because he sees this cycle repeat with his students. Consequently, education can be a good thing in their lives, but they’re still surrounded by many dangerous possibilities that can ruin their lives at a very young age. 

In addition, the mental effects of racism can be further explored through the notions of Freud. Particularly, Sonny uses drugs as a way to escape his thoughts: the struggles he goes through as an African American. According to the story, Sonny states, “What heroin feels like sometimes when it’s in your veins. It makes you feel warm and cool. It makes you feel in control” (Baldwin 16). Sonny, a young man, reached for drugs as a way to feel like he’s in control rather than being controlled by society. Doing drugs makes him feel like he’s part of something that exists, which can be labeled as repression. According to Freud, “All these experiences had involved the emergence of a wishful impulse which was in sharp contrast to the subject’s other wishes, and which proved incompatible with the ethical and aesthetic standards of his personality”(Freud 2212). Sonny wishes he could be in control of his life, so doing drugs tricks his mind into fulfilling that impulse. While this might make him feel in control, it can also destroy him mentally, which reveals the conflicts that African Americans go through mentally. Later on, Sonny’s repressed thoughts, the struggles in his life, cause the outcome of his talent, music. The narrator states, “it turned out everyone knew Sonny, and some were there to see Sonny play. Here, I was in Sonny’s world. Or rather: his kingdom” (Baldwin 18). Sonny’s way of replacing bad behavior turned into a talent that people came to hear specifically, him playing the piano. According to Freud, “If a person who is at loggerheads with reality possesses an artistic gift, he can transform his phantasies into artistic creations instead of into symptoms” (Freud 2235). Happily, instead of Sonny’s feelings turning into symptoms like depression, he expresses it through his Jazz piano. However, this doesn’t cover the fact that what made him develop an artistic gift were the bad feelings inside him because of his daily struggles. Consequently, Sonny wants to leave Harlem to escape those struggles. For example, “I want to join the army. Or the navy. To get out of Harlem” while also stating “I’m sick of the stink of these garbage cans!” (Baldwin 11). The garbage cans that Sonny is talking about are more than just the smell of them but Sonny’s criticism of Harlem. He believes that leaving Harlem will give him a higher chance of avoiding drugs and having a better life. According to Freud, “the energy of the infantile wishful impulses is not cut off but remains ready for use – the unserviceable aim of the various impulses being replaced by one that is higher”(Freud 2238). Simply, leaving Harlem to join the army is a way of rechanneling his actions into more acceptable and beneficial ones. Therefore, the mental effects of racism can be  life-changing    

Broadly speaking, there are tons of viewpoints on this case that can further support the unjust actions taken towards African Americans. For example, in “Who Set You Feelin’? And The Great Migration Narrative In James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues” by John Claborn, the author applies his opinion on Sonny’s future. He states, “Sonny’s ephemeral aesthetic control over suffering is the light that will soon be pinched out by the outside darkness. His future is questionable. “Sonny’s Blues” implies the communal affects and traumatic memories in Harlem” (Claborn 99). Since Sonny admires music like his uncle, maybe their fate will be the same, death. Similarly, the narrator is an algebra teacher and Sonny is a pianist, they still struggle as African Americans. As previously stated, the narrator is always thinking of his students and their path while teaching them. This is because he’s afraid that they get influenced by the struggles they face every day in such a neighborhood. Surprisingly, Sonny also suffers even though his journey is different from his brothers. He got addicted to drugs at a very young age which mentally destroyed him to the point where he wanted to leave Harlem for a new start. Furthermore, in “James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: Complicated And Simple ” by Donald C. Murray, the author considers the criticism of society towards African Americans in the 1950s. He states “Sonny’s Blues is the story of a boy’s growth to adulthood at a place, the Harlem ghetto, where it’s easier to remain a cunning child and at a time where black is not beautiful, the limbo of drug addiction, rather than to truly find oneself ”(Murray 353). Simply, it’s complicated to live a normal childhood while all you’re surrounded by are drugs, racism, and limitation of desires. According to Wikipedia, 98.2 % of Harlem residents were African Americans. Therefore, Harlem is not a place of growth because it’s an isolated community surrounded by bad influences: other African Americans struggling.

It has come to an end to briefly argue that this story is cyclical: struggles being passed from one generation to the other. As James Baldwin uses his short story “Sonny’s Blues” to show the social struggles of African Americans, he also shows the mental effects of racism. While the short story has its literary analysis, the notions of Freud are used to view the struggles from a psychoanalytic perspective.     

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues”. Partisan Review, 1957. 

Claborn, John. “Who Set You Feelin’? Harlem, Communal Affect, and the Great Migration Narrative in James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’”, English Language Notes vol.48, no. 1, 2010, pp. 89–100.

Freud, Sigmund. Five Lectures On Psycho-Analysis. Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc, 1910

Murray, Donald. “James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: Complicated And Simple”, Studies In Short Fiction vol. 14, no. 4, 2002, pp. 353-357

Wikipedia contributors. “History of Harlem.” Wikipedia, 18 Nov. 2021, 

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