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
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