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Explanation and Analysis:
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story that can be categorized as a work of African American fiction. The story belongs to the genre of African American literature as it is a literary work written by an African American author that focuses on the specific experiences of African Americans. In the case of “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin is trying to capture the particular experience of African Americans in Harlem in the 1950s as they navigate drug addiction, loss, and other struggles.
This story can also be categorized as a work of realist fiction in that Baldwin intentionally tries to capture Harlem as it was at the time of writing. Baldwin was born in Harlem and lived there for decades, so he knew the neighborhood (and New York City as a whole) well. In “Sonny’s Blues” he captures Harlem’s positive aspects (such as its jazz bars full of talented musicians and camaraderie) as well as its negative ones (such as poverty and poor housing conditions).
This story could more specifically be considered a work of psychological realism, given the ways that it honestly explores the main character's deep emotional turmoil over things like his daughter dying, his brother Sonny being in and out of prison, and his longing for his family to escape the cycles of suffering that they have been trapped in.
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