Editor's Choice
Define "the blues" as explained by James Baldwin in "The Uses of the Blues."
Quick answer:
James Baldwin's essay "The Use of the Blues" goes beyond the musical genre of blues. He plainly states that he is using "the blues" as a metaphor to describe an experience in life. He writes, "I might have titled this 'The Uses of Anguish' or 'The Uses of Pain,'" noting that he has instead chosen to employ the language of the blues to mean something more specific to the African American experience in the United States, which he calls "the American Negro's experience of life." When discussing the blues, Baldwin essentially makes a statement that life as a black person in America is not about race but, rather, about the fact of social discrimination and powerlessness.
James Baldwin's essay "The Use of the Blues" goes beyond the musical genre of blues. He plainly states that he is using "the blues" as a metaphor to describe an experience in life. He writes, "I might have titled this 'The Uses of Anguish' or 'The Uses of Pain,'" noting that he has instead chosen to employ the language of the blues to mean something more specific to the African American experience in the United States, which he calls "the American Negro's experience of life."
When discussing the blues, Baldwin essentially makes a statement that life as a black person in America is not about race but, rather, about the fact of social discrimination and powerlessness. He uses the essay to offer social commentary about the American discourse about black people at the time.
One could argue that the blues in this essay represent the burden of daily life...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
as a black person in the United States, which might include social discrimination, bloodshed, lynching, labeling, arbitrary social categorization, and more. In Baldwin's definition of the blues, the blues are the burden of life that people accept, that they metaphorically invite into their homes, and that they acknowledge in order to fight to make society a more just place.
The blues, as defined in James Baldwin's "The Use of the Blues," is not just a musical form. More fundamentally, the blues refers to a particular way of responding to the suffering and imperfection in the world.
When people feel treated unfairly by life, some grudgingly accept it. The blues takes a different approach: it is based on the refusal to accept unfair treatment, whether by fate or by a discriminatory society. For Baldwin, the blues insists on feeling and understanding the anguish that people feel when they are not allowed to develop to their full potential.
For instance, in Baldwin’s story “Sonny’s Blues,” the narrator points to the frustration of many of his students, who are filled with ambition but are unable to realize those ambitions because of poverty and discrimination. The blues emerge from the gap between the life that people imagine for themselves and the life the world gives them.
In his essay "The Uses of the Blues," Baldwin writes that the blues does not refer to a kind of music, but to a state of life and being. The blues are the not just the feeling of pain or suffering but the state in which this pain can be endured and one has the toughness to endure it. Baldwin writes that blacks in America know a sense of suffering and accept the reality of pain. This awareness helps them define what is beautiful and helps them not run from life but embrace it. He includes the story of Miles Davis giving Billie Holliday one-hundred dollars. When someone asks if he realizes that she will just use the money on drugs, Miles Davis asks if the person speaking to him has ever had the experience of being sick. In other words, to know pain is to accept the beauty and fragility of life. The blues captures this way of being. In "Sonny's Blues," the narrator's brother, Sonny, has an appreciation of the pain of life, and that is why his music is so beautiful.
James Baldwin defines "the blues" very poignantly in his essay "The Uses of Blues." Baldwin states in his essay the following:
I am talking about what happens to you if, having barely escaped suicide, death or madness, or yourself, you watch your children growing up and no matter what you do, no matter what you do, you are powerless, you are really powerless, against forces of the world that is out to tell your child that he has no right to be alive.
Here, he is stating the characteristics of those who have "the blues." These people suffer from the fact that some people find themselves in a place where they feel so powerless that they can only fall into a depression, or the blues.
It seems that, in the essay, Baldwin understands the true power that feeling helpless and powerless can have over a person. The blues are more than just a state of mind; they can be both emotional and physically draining on a person. For Baldwin, the blues are a force, almost personified, which can force a person into a place where they feel they have no way of feeling whole and content again.
Along with the immediate feelings of depression, the person would tend to feel as if they deserve the life they are leading. If one has been down for so long they will simply come to believe that the life they are leading is the one they deserve.