SOURCE: "The Black Musician: The Black Hero as Light Bearer," in Give Birth to Brightness, Dial Press, 1972, pp. 135-66.

Williams is an American novelist, poet, critic, and author of children's books whose most highly acclaimed work is the novel Dessa Rose (1986). In the following excerpt, a portion of which appeared in CLC-3, she examines the significance of music and the musician in "Sonny's Blues."

The musician in the works of James Baldwin is more than a metaphor; he is the embodiment of alienation and estrangement, which the figure of the artist becomes in much of twentieth century literature. Most of his characters have at the center of their portrayal an isolation from the society, the culture, even each other. They are also commentaries upon the brutal, emasculating, feared—and fearing—land from which they are so estranged. The musician is also for Baldwin an archetypal figure whose referent...