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Grace Brown

Ginger Jones

ENGL 2031.171l

September 8, 2022

Psychoanalysis Criticism of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Many humans go through life dealing with a lot of trials and tribulations. And each hu-

man processes those feelings differently. It is also ok that everyone is different in their unique

way since. Typically, two people can experience the same thing yet have different outlooks.

James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues is a prime example of two individuals sharing the same experi-

ence but having different opinions. Baldwin also used many metaphors throughout the story that

had many different meanings. James Baldwin uses these metaphors to decode unresolved emo-

tions and guilt and psychological conflicts in the narrator’s life. These metaphors link to the

misery and suffering of not only the author but many of the readers as well.

An example of how the author tries to create an example of a common scenario between

a person, and someone is in the beginning of the novel. An older neighborhood friend is telling

the narrator of Sonny’s Blues about the narrator’s younger brother, who has been in some trouble

and suffers from addiction. While the old friend is talking, the narrator says, “All this was carry-

ing me someplace I didn’t want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it felt. It filled every-

thing, the people, the houses, the music, the dark quicksilver barmaid, with menace, and this

menace was their reality. (Baldwin)” James Baldwin is referring to his previous life of poverty in

which he and his brother lived in poverty as well as his oppressed living environment as a black
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man in America. The menace or danger he refers to is the suffering and sorrow he once felt and

all those mentioned. The people are filled with grief and are suffering from that sorrow. The

houses were riddled with systematic racism, leaving the people of the homes neglected; the mis-

ery and suffering make the music of those same people—the neighborhood’s reality, which is

what the narrator meant by not wanting to return to that place. The place he is referring to is that

suffering, and sorrow are no longer a part of what he wanted to deal with, yet here he is about to

go back down that misery lane. Many Americans, specifically Black Americans can relate to this

feeling. “Made it out the hood to middle-class America.” Normally, when someone graduates

from poverty, they do not want to return. For the author is main regret is going to the Army after

his parents pass, and leaving his brother to be raised by his, at the time girlfriend’s parents. rThe

main regret he is referring to is that of his brother Sonny. He feels he has failed his parents and

brother because Sonny has taken his sorrow and turned it into an addiction to drugs. Sonny did

not want to go to school to support himself; instead, he wanted to be a musician. That is not the

path that was supposed to be for Sonny. After their parents pass away, the narrator has sorrow

and strives to become a successful man by working as a teacher, whereas Sonny’s suffering leads

him down a dark path of drugs and incarceration. Same experience, but the two had different out-

comes from a sorrowful and suffrage situation. The literary work of this novel also is one that is

connected to many readers’ own personal life, or close to it. Many individuals have a similar

story of dealing with a family member who may be dealing with an addiction, as it is an ex-

tremely common issue in America. This allows the novel to be an easy topic for one to relate to.

For example, my family has an uncle who has an addiction problem. A lot of Black Americans

can relate to this topic as well, as there is a disadvantage in economic relations between Black

Americans and White Americans, that drugs in those types of areas are more common.
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Another metaphor that deals with sorrow and suffering are when Creole, Sonny’s band-

mate, and Sonny are having what sounds like a conversation through music. “He wanted Sonny

to leave the shoreline and strike for the deep water. (Baldwin)” James Baldwin uses the term

“deep water” which has a different undertone meaning. Creole is playing and letting Sonny feel

the sorrow and suffering he feels. The deep water is taking a chance on him, and he knows that

even though that water is deep, he will now sink and drown. In this metaphor, Creole is letting

Sonny see I, too, have had my sorrows and sufferings, and I took that leap of faith and went into

the deep end, and we can swim together, and we will be fine. While this is happening, the narra-

tor then understands, through all his sufferings and his brother’s sufferings, and even though he

thinks he failed his brother for not supporting him in wanting to create music, that there is noth-

ing to regret about being sorrowful. His brother found his niche through their trials and tribula-

tions. This is also a part of the narrator’s story. He has gone years and years of thinking his

brother has wasted his life away, only to realize, that he himself should have taken a chance on

his brother and believed in him. That deep water is also meant for the narrator to understand that

his brother may jump into the deep end, but he will survive in that deep end. A reader who is a

parent may relate to this because they may have a hard time allowing their child to jump into that

deep end of the pool.

This story starts with the narrator and his brother Sonny and Sonny’s sorrow and suffer-

ings that lead him to become a blues jazz player. Still, it details similar experiences the brothers

go through, but they handled them differently. In the end, the narrator sends his brother a Scotch

and milk; this last metaphor shows how the narrator, through his experiences, learns to accept his

brother as he is through; his sufferings and sorrow. The psychoanalysis of this story is to allow

the reader, as well as the author, to understand that by allowing people to pursue what they want
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in life, how they want, they can become successful, and they may not need to be those overbear-

ing ways over their loved ones. For the author, childhood and adulthood traumas, and persever-

ance is possible for not only them but the reader as well. Not only do these scenarios pertain to

previous lifestyles from the early 1960s and 1970s, but also today in 2022. I, as a reader related

to this novel because, being a Black American, with an uncle who has an addiction, I understood

what the author meant in all his feelings, as well as could only imagine what my mother and

grandparents felt when dealing with my uncle. It is not an easy task to deal with one with addic-

tion, however, to see them overcome the addiction and pursue and be successful in what they

want, can only be the feeling of accomplishment.

Work Cited

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” The Jazz Fiction Anthology. Ed. Sascha Feinstein and David
Rife. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2009 (7-48)
https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/Baldwin-Sonnys-Blues.pdf
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