Finding Identity In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

So, what makes a person themself? Children are very influential, and many factors of daily life can impact the construction of their identity. The identities that we form as children will stick with us throughout adulthood while altering slightly along the way. “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story by James Baldwin, highlights the endeavors of an African American boy on the path to finding his true self. Although there are countless influences on Sonny’s identity, the circumstances that his parents place him in as a child are the largest impacts on his road to finding his identity. Parents cannot predetermine the identity of their children, but circumstances such as the environment, quality of education, and social class that children are born into

Parents have the full choice of where they would prefer for their children to attend school, and so often children are put at a disadvantage because they are learning in a school that does not have the resources to prepare children for college or adulthood. As stated in the article, “Choose Your Parents Wisely,” educated parents “create an environment at home that helps… intelligence to blossom, and they buy houses near good schools” (6). A better quality of education is more prominent in the lives of children that have well-educated parents, and the children whose parents dropped out of high school are left with mediocre expectations to overcome the obstacle of finishing school and obtaining a well paying job in the future. All we know about Sonny’s education is that he grew up in an impoverished area, leading us to believe that the educational system was not advanced, and that he tends to skip school to go do drugs with his friends. Because Sonny’s parents died so early, they were not able to play the biggest role in his life, but they did decide which school system that he would be apart of, and his school life did affect the man that he grew up to become. Another aspect of education that can impact children’s identities is highlighted in the article, “This is Your Brain on ‘Poor’,” by Erika Hayasaki, “underfunded schools in poor communities can hamper normal brain

In “The Inequality Cycle,” Oren Cass states that “social class… [interferes] with opportunity” (5). It is difficult for children of poor families to find their true selves because they have the added weight of having to worry about whether they will have dinner next week, whether their parents will be out late working, and whether the electricity will be on when they get home from school on any given day. Impoverished children often have to take on issues that are far beyond their maturity levels because their parents cannot be as active in the children’s lives due to their own worries about their financial state. An example from “Sonny’s Blues” of Sonny’s distraction from developing his own identity is when his parents die and he is left with a brother as his guardian and not very much money to support the two of them. Sonny lacked the opportunity of getting a head start on his musical career because his brother did not support the pursuit of a career in music due to the fact that it was not known to be a stable income that could make a living for a young man. As stated by Paul Tough, “traumatic events in childhood could produce negative feelings in adulthood” (6). Because Sonny was born into a lower class family, he was