AS AM 5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Double Consciousness, White Supremacy, Social Realism
Document Summary
The form and content of the blues articulate the social. Story of these two brothers growing up together through the aesthetic/blues that. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically. Sonny feels unseen and unheard; requests for his sibling to listen/pay attention. Blues as historic particularity; broad humanism at the same time. Old, dark, and funky is a metaphor for living in this particular place and metaphor for us all. The humor is too prevalent to read it literally. Self-questioning that forces a rethinking of jewishness. A space for a new, mid-century, anxious and sometimes self-hating, sense that tries to hold on to jewishness in a post-holocaust american world. Answer is not a constant, consistent idea; it is constantly asking oneself questions. For baldwin, the dehumanizing effects of the color line. For roth, the importance of self-questioning as a method of identity formation.
