SOURCE: "James Baldwin's Vision of Otherness in 'Sonny's Blues' and Giovanni's Room," in CLA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1, September, 1988, pp. 69-80.

In the following excerpt, Bieganowski discusses the ways in which the characters in "Sonny's Blues" acquire self-knowledge and the implications such knowledge has for their relationships with others.

For several decades now, James Baldwin has maintained his position of importance among black writers through his novels, stories, essays, and interviews, generating continued scholarly interest. In her recent book on Baldwin [James Baldwin, 1980], Carolyn Sylvander points to the "nuclear ideas and beliefs" around which Baldwin's works have developed and grown over the years. For many readers, Baldwin establishes as the basis of his fiction "the quest for identity," for "true, fundamental being" and the dislocations of the modern world. For instance, Shirley Ann Williams summarizes the core of Baldwin's fiction: "Most of his characters have at the center of...