Reader Report on “Real Deep and Funky Hole”: Sifting through agents of darkness in
James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”
This article was able to make a great contribution to those who wish to learn more about James
Baldwin’s theme of darkness in Sonny’s Blues. The article also was able to note how critics
touched on these themes and was able to take these points and redefine that although informative
mediums and the media seem to cause darkness. This article reinforces the idea of being dug or
understood which expresses these ideas in a different way and gives us a new perspective on how
the narrator and his relationship with Sonny express their need to be understood.
Overall, the article makes an innovative and unique take on the reading of the short story. The
writing is excellent, and the arguments and the evidence used were useful for furthering the
points of the article. While there have been many critics that have chosen to address Sonny’s
Blues, I thought that this article was able to expand on those points in thoughtful ways.
I would recommend this article for publication; although, I have one main critique to make for
revision that may enhance the paper.
The importance of the word “dug” is particularly important to the point of the article, however,
the focus of this point isn’t brought to attention under much later in the article. If there had been
a further connection between the need for understanding to the initial critiques found by other
articles, it would have helped to strengthen the point being made.
In the first three pages, you strongly develop the overall presence of darkness and how it is
displayed in the text, making several strong connections to the role that movies had for
alleviating darkness on page two and how the narrator is so strongly put off by these distractions,
but finds himself in the darkness himself on page three, even though he sees himself as above
that. While these present strong details on how the darkness is presented, having a brief
connection from these and how your point on the need to be understood is also present, this
would further strengthen your point. A good example of this is when you reiterate the characters
retreating to mainstream media on page five.
Overall, I thought this article was very well written and made substantial contributions to the
discussion surrounding Sonny’s Blues. With further connections to some of the great details it
pointed out in the first three pages surrounding darkness to your later points, it would make the
article even better.