Application of Althusserian Theory to Baldwin’s Fiction: Microinteractions between Subjects

An essay in applying Althusserian theory to James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”:

Althusser, aside from constructing a theoretical apparatus, touches upon the interpersonal functioning of “subjects” that constitute that apparatus; the people only upon which the apparatus has meaning at all. He puts forth two concepts: the “individual” and the “subject”. In his argument, Althusser defines a “subject” as a member who participates in the “rituals” of society governed by an “ideological state apparatus”. The ones that ideology has yet to reach, then: the “individual”. Yet, there exists an impossibility in the individual’s naivete: according to Althusser, as a mother gives birth to the child, the apparatus of society has already subjugated the child: his family ideology has already influenced him in the form of gender reveals and the coming up of a name. In that sense, everybody comes to this world “always-already” as a subject. Under that world, the subjects “recognize each other” and “behave[s] accordingly” in accordance with the tacit requirements of the ISA. When a subject of an alien ideology arrives –that ideology shall now call “B”– the ideology “A” will see that alien subject as again an “individual” and will begin the process of “recruiting”, through a “hail”. To the subject, the ideological world that he lives in “has to be so”. Via the “hail” from Ideology A, the man from Ideology B will inevitably “recognize that it really is he” being called upon, and expose himself to the Apparatus of Ideology A. 

Through this process of hailing, the subject works for the “has to be so” reality in recruiting individuals – though not in the sense between the slave and the master, as the subject takes “[responsibility] for his actions”, consciously and willingly working for that ideology. Such a process happens within “Sonny’s Blues”. The protagonist attempts to interpellate his distant little brother; as this happens, he confronts an ideology different to his own; however, in the process of converting an individual into a subject, he faces the resistance of the individual and a counter-hailing from Sonny through music.

Sonny’s ideology and the narrator’s ideology clash. The two brothers have a great age difference that created a divide between them; The narrator teaches at a school, while Sonny moved away from that educational system and into the stereotypical drug-filled life of an African American jazz musician. Before the hail or the interpellation comes a stage of recognition between the two parties, and so it happens. In the first conversation Sonny has with the protagonist, awkwardness pervades the atmosphere. The protagonist describes that “The seven years difference lay between us like a chasm: I always wondered if these years would operate within us like a bridge”. He recognizes the ideological difference between the two. Even though Althusser never mentions this stage before “hail from the police officer” and states that “in reality [the existence of ideology and interpellation] happen without any succession” – an implicit process. This conversation functions like an explicit explanation of the pre-interpellation stage. The police officer, in order to make an attempt at calling somebody, has to first recognize the existence and moreover the foreign status of the individual. From here the narrator had two choices: to leave the other person be or to initiate interpellation.

Throughout the story, the narrator repeatedly attempts to reach Sonny in a “hail”. “We already decided that you was going to go and live at Isabel’s. Now what’s got to you all of a sudden?”. The narrator attempts to send Sonny through the school system, “to educate him”. However, Sonny rejects this “recruitment”; “‘You decided it’, he pointed out. ‘I didn’t decide nothing’”.  Here, Sonny says no to the “[transformation of] the individuals into subjects”. The narrator functions like State Power would by enforcing power to keep the consistency of subjects within the apparatus. The rejection of an “one-hundred-and-eighty-degree-physical conversion”, then, almost elevates Sonny’s individual to equal footing with the Narrator’s ideology; individual beliefs become the ideology that they constitute themselves. If one moves past the Althusserian constraint of conflicts within one ideology, Baldwin tells a story of a conflict between two ideologies; at this point, the conflict has stalled. The narrator, after a failed interpellation, says, “I gave up, I decided. If I couldn’t change his mind, we could always talk about it later”. And so they did, then there came another conflict in ideology, this time in Sonny’s apparatus instead of the Narrator’s.  

A counter-hail happens through Sonny’s ideological language – music. The nature of the story portrays Sonny in a negative light, “popping off needles” and skipping school, angering aunt Isabel while stirring up trouble at every stage of his life; Society clearly does not accept Sonny; the outbursts of Aunt Isabel reflect that, who “reached him” but never truly turned him into a “subject” per se. During his conflict with Aunt Isabel, she ruthlessly strips down Sonny’s ideology “naked” and starts to see him. She “denies” ever complaining to Sonny on that day – an act of sympathy and understanding of the one who still held power. Sonny, at this time, ceased speaking. Sonny had only talked in Standard English since it was the “oppressor’s language” – that of his brother and Isabel. However, as his brother enters a local jazz club, suddenly, he becomes the stranger, the outsider, the socially unfitting one. His music preaches freedom and the ability to “listen”, but the Narrator fails to understand at first. However, as he exists within Sonny’s domain, forced to listen to Sonny’s language, which made the narrator realize that “the hail was ‘really’ addressed to him”, the narrator turns around and recognizes the tangibility and possibility of Sonny’s ideology; this obliterates the original power dynamic. He finally “understood” Sonny. In that moment, with “freedom [lurking] around [them] and [he] understood, at last, that [Sonny] could help us to be free if we could listen”. This sentence feels like an apology to Sonny from the oppressor, for how he practiced “denegation” of the possibility away from his own “has to be so” reality, and a statement of hope for a better future under mutual understanding.

The human mind inevitably grounds itself within beliefs, since only from the differing of beliefs, could conflict occur – “one of the effects of ideology is the practical denegation of the ideological character by ideology…”. James Baldwin brings that theoretical Althusserian argument into a practical story which displays how ideology, double formless and concrete, influences subjects – proving George Orwell’s claim that all writing inherently stems from politics; any development of a plot originates from conflict. James Baldwin seems to take Orwell’s idea one step further. He resolves the story in an optimistic hope for the future, and imagines a post-ideological world in which pragmatic understanding replaces negative conflict and interpellation. Even though subjects inevitably reflect the beliefs of one ideology – subject to them, we can move pass the inevitability and take an almost absurdist approach: if we cannot remove ideology, we should do best to understand, inform, communicate so as to diversify perspectives and create the best outcome out of a depressing truth, in the form of peace; “Sonny’s Blues” tells exactly that story. Through the power of music, Sonny and the Narrator found understanding. However, the idea of music as language still feels abstract; Jazz musicians preach the idea of music as day-to-day language, yet it feels like the jazz club in the story – the environment in which jazz music operates, feels of a different reality compared to society – the environment in which day-to-day language operates in. The only explanation to this inconsistency: music only parallels day-to-day language in its function to communicate, but not in the way that subjects approach each other. Music, in fact, offers an escape from society, creating a conflict-free panel of discussion; this very nature of music as an escape or a superfluous aspect of entertainment reflects its detachment from social reality. James Baldwin already proved that this “escape” as a means of communication has the power to cross ideological gaps. What about real language then? Should it not be able to cross these bridges that music, its “superfluous” counterpart, could? Thus, “Sonny’s Blues” calls for people to utilize day-to-day language’s power like music’s has always been, in hopes of a future to which Toni Morrison would say “Look. How lovely it is, this thing we have done – together”.