Blues Woman Essay

“Sonny’s Blues” is an emotional story written by an amazing author, James Baldwin, who has come to be one of my favorite writers. This particular piece talks about the troubles of African American freeing themselves from the mental bondages of their surroundings, the ghetto. The title is significant, and helped me to understand the underlining meaning of the story. The title can be divided into two main reasons, the first, “Sonny’s Blues, meaning the music he plays. Second is the reference to his life, his feelings, his style, and most importantly his way of life.

In the early 1920s, three works signaled the new creative energy in African American literature. McKay’s volume of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922), became one of the first works by a black writer to be published by a mainstream, national publisher (Harcourt, Brace and Company). Cane (1923), by Jean Toomer, was an experimental novel that combined poetry and prose in documenting the life of American blacks in the rural South and urban North (Andrews 4). Finally, There Is Confusion (1924), the first novel by writer and Editor Jessie Fauset, depicted middle-class life among black Americans from a woman’s perspective (Andrews 4).

Known as the “Empress Of Blues”, Bessie Smith was said to have revolutionized the vocal end of Blues Music. She showed a lot of pride as an independent African-American woman. Her style in performance and lyrics often reflected her lifestyle. Bessie Smith was one of the first female jazz artists, and she paved the way for many musicians who followed.

Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about

The Harlem Renaissance was a time of revival and awakening in which the African American community produced a new form of cultural identity. After years of oppression and slavery, African Americans struggled to discover their own distinctive culture. It was through the literature and artistry of the Harlem Renaissance that the African American community began to express the suffering and resentment they truly experienced. In addition, the movement allowed them to find a way to escape their hardships. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” and Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues” address the addiction, poverty, and violence that surrounded African Americans and the triumph of life that was captured in their attempt to escape the suffering.

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Fictional writing is generally done just to entertain readers. Some authors create stories with a singular point of view, while others introduce more complex plots and storylines. When it comes to author James Baldwin’s short story Sonny’s Blues, there is much depth given to the storyline and the characters. Sonny’s Blues has been analyzed by many different people throughout time because the story has many elements. From Baldwin’s skillful use of metaphors and similes to his incorporation of religious references, this story is insightfully and complexly written. A simple story about a man and his brother leaves readers with an inside look into family, drug addiction, socioeconomic struggles in the Black community, and the language of Jazz

Bessie smith was an American blues singer who was proudly nicknamed the empress of the blues. Smith was one of the most popular female blue singer of the 1920’s and 1930s, she was born April 15, 1894, in Chattanooga Tennessee and died in Clarksdale MS September 26, 1937.

August Wilson’s highly acclaimed play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is set in Chicago in the late 1920’s. The main character, Ma Rainey, is an African American blues singer, and she is managed by a white music producer named Irvin. Levee, the youngest of four band members, takes on a surprisingly dominant role in the play. Anyone can open a history text book and learn about the general social issues that were present in the early nineteen hundreds. Wilson takes this history lesson one step further, and shows his readers the affects of these racial issues on a personal level. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom shows how the disrespect and exploitation of young African Americans in the music industry can either lead to empowerment or downfall.

To kick it off, Zora Neale Hurston, her best known work is a novel which captures the culture of a working-class black community. Zora was considered by many people to be the pre-eminent (excellent) black female writer in the country. ‘’Her work was everywhere, in major magazines and on bookshelves. She consulted on screenplays for Hollywood. She was also one of the brightest lights of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s. An occasional collaborator with Langston Hughes and a rival of Richard Wright’’. Although she was born in Alabama she’s still a big figure for Floridians. Hurston's star faded and she died poor and unknown in 1960.

Mammie, Jezebel, and the ever ready prostitute and Sapphire. In “Four Women” Nina Simone links the history of black women in America as defined

Even after slavery, African American women are still imprisoned by their inferior role to men. The women could be from different statuses based on job, wealth, or marital status, but they are would find themselves suffering under the rules of their men. The blues “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues” by Ida Cox and “Mamie’s Blues” by Jelly Roll Morton talk about the challenges of women living during the Harlem Renaissance. The blues surrounded the African American women during this time, and these songs talk about women facing hardships in life because they are second class citizens compared to men.

In the novel, The Color Purple, there are three main characters who demonstrate meaningful traits of women. Celie, the main character, is the most important of the three. She is influenced by other characters in the novel and is inspired to let herself seek their virtues. Celie's two friends, Shug and Sofia, are both strong women who teach Celie how to achieve the happiness she desires.

No black person can escape the blues, because the blues are an inherent part of the black existence in America. To be black is to be blue. The blues tell us about black people’s attempt to carve out a significant existence in a very trying situation. The purpose of the blues is to give structure to black existence in a context where color means rejection and humiliation. Suffering and its relation to blackness is inseparable from the meaning of the blues. Without pain and suffering, and what that meant for black people in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas, there would have been no blues. The blue mood means sorrow, frustration, despair, and black people’s attempt to take these existential realities upon themselves and not lose their sanity. The blues are not art for art’s sake, music for music’s sake. They are a way of life, a life-style of the black community; and the will for survival. Thus to seek to understand the blues apart from the suffering that created them is to misinterpret them and distort the very creativity that defines them (Cone, 1980).

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, depicts characters desperately seeking to attain love through a predetermined standard of beauty established and substantiated by society. Morrison intertwines the histories of several characters portraying the delusions of the ‘perfect’ family and what motivates their quest for love and beauty. Ultimately, this pursuit for love and beauty has overwhelming effects on their relationships and their identity.