A Stranger In The Village By James Baldwin

James Baldwin: On What it’s Really Like

In James Baldwin’s “A Stranger in the Village” and “Sonny’s Blues,” our eyes are opened to the struggles of African Americans in the 1950’s. Baldwin writes about the struggles with identity, social acceptance, and racial discrimination. It is apparent that Baldwin has a very strong opinion behind the reasoning for these three struggles and he elaborates on each throughout these two stories. Through bringing these themes to life, he helps us to have a closer glimpse of what it was like to be like him.
First and foremost, Baldwin’s writings deal with the overwhelming sense of identity, or the search for identity. In “A Stranger in the Village,” he states, “At the root of the American Negro problem
is the necessity of the American white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to be able to live with himself.” (pg. 1712) In this statement, Baldwin is commenting on the search for identity through the idea of what white people need to live with themselves. The black Americans can only find identity once the white man figures out how to live with them having one. He goes on to say, “…the white man’s motive was the protection of his identity; the black man was motivated by the need to establish an identity.” (pg. 1712) Because black Americans have had to endure so much struggle and decades of anonymity through the time fo slavery, at this point, they are starting from the ground up to find out who they are as a people and as a community. Even further, they must find out who they are as a people and as a community, and how that fits into the white society surrounding them. In “Sonny’s Blues,” we read about more of a personal identity struggle, rather than a racial identity struggle as a pair of brother try to find out who they are and what the mean to each other. Sonny is a heroin addict who only feels complete when he is surrounded by music. His older brother, the narrator, a teacher, does not understand this, and constantly tries to get Sonny to figure out what it is he wants out of life. This is a common struggle between family members who live very opposite lives. As we watch the narrator struggle to help Sonny find his identity, he never really reveals his own, other than his identity being that of a caretaker for his brother. All along, even though he is seen as a complete mess with no direction, Sonny is the one who has a strong sense of identity. It isn’t until the end of the story, that the narrator can finally see his brother for who he really is. Sonny identifies with the music, and the lifestyle it exudes. He is comfortable in his own skin when he is surrounded by the music. “Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life. His life.” (pg. 1749)
Secondly, Baldwin tackles the theme of social acceptance in both pieces.
In “A Stranger in the Village,” Baldwin is living in Chartres, Switzerland, a small mountain town where he can be completely removed from the noise and chaos of Harlem or Paris, and he can just write. When he walks through the small town, he knows that he is the first and only black person most of these people have ever seen. However, he is greeted very differently that in America. As he walks down the street, “The children who shout ‘Neger!’ have no way of knowing the echoes this sound raises in me.” (pg. 1707) Such a word that comes with a supremely negative and threatening connotation in the U.S. is simply a word spoken by children who see a man different from themselves and are intrigued. Baldwin is seen as more of a side show act, or an exotic creature to the people of Chartres. They are fascinated by his difference from them, but do not seem to be threatened or disgusted. The biggest example of social acceptance from “A Stranger in the Village” would be the image of Baldwin playing with the local children on a nice day. To see a grown black man playing with small white children in the United States at this time would not be tolerated. In some parts of the country it would absolutely result in jail time, violence, or even death. In Chartres, the children play freely with Baldwin as their parents look on. It is both socially accepted and celebrated. It is amazing to see the difference in perspective through a difference of history. America’s past dictates its present. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the biggest theme of social acceptance comes with Sonny’s chosen lifestyle and profession. As he struggles with a heroin addiction, he also struggles to make a life for himself through his music. There is a stigma placed on artists that they are lazy, irresponsible people who don’t want to go out and get a “real job.” This is definitely a stigma placed on Sonny by not only society, but his brother as
well. “Sonny’s Blues” is a piece that teaches us to celebrate those who want to live creatively, and to recognize their importance in our society.
Lastly, as with most of Baldwin’s pieces, we are forced to look at the theme of racial discrimination. In “A Stranger in the Village,” Baldwin speaks of rage. He says, “Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence and is therefore not susceptible to any arguments whatever.” (pg. 1708) he says that the rage and resentment the black man has for the white man is something that can never completely go away, and that there are two ways to deal with it. “…either rob the white man of the jewel of his naïveté, or else to make it cost him dear.” (pg. 1708) In Chartres, Baldwin is approached by children who want to see if the color on his skin will rub off. When they realize it doesn’t, they are fascinated by this person who is so different than them. At the very same time, in America, it is a well-known fact that the color of your skin will not rub off and that it will dictate every part of your life. In certain states it will tell you where you can eat, where you sit, who you can buy from, and where you can go to school. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the suffering that the narrator finally sees his brother going through as a struggling musician and addict, can be mirrored to the suffering of black people in America. He reads of Sonny’s arrest in the subway where Baldwin writes “I stared at it (the article of Sonny’s arrest) in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside.” (1728) This can be read literally, as it is very dark outside a running subway car, but also metaphorically, seeing the “darkness which roared outside” as the darkness and suffering black people would face on a daily basis, struggling to get through life in a white dominated society.
In conclusion, Baldwin writes about real life experiences as well as fictional experiences that come to the same conclusions. His writings hold a mirror up to the society in which he lived in and gave insight to the troubles, and also the triumphs of the human race. He exposed 1950’s America for what it really was, and showed us 1950’s Europe, which had a very different opinion on people such as himself. He gives us perspective on the life he lead and the lives led be those surrounding him, ultimately giving us a greater understanding of our own history, white or black.