Blues for an Alabama Sky: Themes (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature): Revision Note
Exam code: 0475 & 0992
The highest level of marks in exams are often linked to answers that demonstrate critical thinking around ideas and themes. Exploring the themes of a text in relation to the question being asked will help to increase the examiner’s confidence in your ability to write assuredly about the text, and the writer’s intentions behind their choices.
Below are some of the themes that could be explored in Blues for an Alabama Sky. This list is not exhaustive, and you are encouraged to identify other themes or ideas within the text:
Dreams and escapism
Decline of the Harlem Renaissance
Identity
Dreams and escapism
Pearl Cleage shows the characters in Blues for an Alabama Sky using their dreams and hopes to escape the harsh reality they live in. This is a constant throughout the play, with many characters looking to transform their lives with ideas, hopes and plans. In the end, dreams are a saviour to some, but condemn others.
Knowledge and evidence:
From the very start, and throughout the play, Cleage presents the idea of moving to Paris as the dream that keeps Guy, and to a lesser extent Angel, going through hard times:
Guy is almost numb to the surrounding hardship, continuing to see Paris as the goal to work towards
When he and Angel lose their jobs, Guy is largely unconcerned as he believes he will be able to escape to Paris soon
For Guy, Paris represents more than just a way out of Harlem and poverty:
As a costume designer, Paris represents the pinnacle of artistic expression in fashion
It also symbolises (opens in a new tab) endless glamour, to suit the flamboyant lifestyle Guy tries to lead, even when harm comes from it
Guy and Delia have clear dreams, and Angel and Sam are supporting characters in their respective plans:
Sam is attracted to Delia, and helps her get her clinic going, and then finds a new location when it is burned down
On the other hand, Angel has little agency in helping Guy to fulfil his dream
Guy is also happy to pay her way, and buys her a ticket to Paris when he gets the job
Delia’s dream is more grounded:
That her and Sam pursue this dream, while Guy and Angel have Paris as theirs, represents differences in the characters
Delia and Sam are more grounded and relatable characters, and the dream of a family clinic is more fitting for them
Angel and Guy are loud and dramatic, and Paris suits that
For the audience, Paris seems quite far-fetched:
From the audience’s limited perspective (opens in a new tab), we don’t know if Josephine really wants him to come, and whether Guy is being realistic
Angel also gives the impression that she doesn’t believe it will happen
It is ironic (opens in a new tab) that the two who lead the dreams are the two who are able to escape:
Arguably, it is their support of those dreams, and how they are carried along by them, that lead to Sam and Angel as the tragic figures in the end
Sam is killed by Leland for performing the abortion on Angel and being a man supportive of a woman’s reproductive autonomy
Angel tries to use Paris to escape Leland and the prospect of a quiet, family life in Harlem with him
In doing so, she ends up contributing to the events of Sam’s death and is therefore unable to go with Guy
Angel and Guy also drink often, using alcohol to escape their situation
What is Cleage’s intention?
Cleage shows that the Harlem Renaissance is over, and with the Depression tightening its grip, people want to escape:
It also highlights how the gap between the idealism of Harlem and the lived experience
Culturally, it is still lively and exciting, but the economic hardship now has people dreaming of escape or change
Angel and Guy want freedom, while the pragmatic Delia and Sam are looking to improve Harlem, showing that Harlem is no longer the dream itself
The idea of dreams also delivers a tension to the play:
The audience is unsure whether any of the characters will achieve their dreams
Cleage explores how ambition can be both empowering and dangerous:
Guy’s dream gives him purpose, while Angel’s desire for security means she clings on to anything she can
Angel makes destructive choices in desperation
Cleage uses these dreams to show us the strengths and flaws of her characters
Mostly, the dreams are used to show the dangers of escapism as a coping mechanism:
If Paris had not worked out for Guy, he and Angel would have been homeless
Their eviction notice days before he gets the letter inviting him to France shows how close they were to disaster
All the characters manage their pain by escaping to their dreams
Cleage consistently presents Leland as oppositional to Angel and the life of her and her friends, but shows Angel’s insecurity and instability in having her turn her back on it so easily
Decline of the Harlem Renaissance
Cleage frames Harlem as a community whose golden age is beginning to slip away, with the characters feeling the constraints around them. Delia and Sam fight growing conservatism, while the economic struggles bite at Angel and Guy as much as the retreating artistic freedom.
Knowledge and evidence:
Guy and Angel both lose their jobs and start to struggle for money:
Both pick up work where they can, but far from what they want to be doing
They are quickly under the threat of eviction, and would possibly have been out on the streets if the Paris move had not materialised
Angel, an experienced singer, and Guy, whose talent is clearly regarded highly enough to be employed in Paris, do not bounce back quickly from unemployment:
They are both in professions that would have been central to a thriving Harlem, but those Renaissance days are fading into the past
Guy longs for Harlem’s “better days”, where cultural excitement helped his lifestyle flourish
Now, the fun is draining away with the money, and Harlem is no longer economically stable nor as culturally exciting
Delia’s work to build the clinic up symbolises the changing attitudes to social reform and progressive expressionism:
Social reform movements were once thriving in Harlem, but now struggle against backlash and community resistance
Sam is representative of what Harlem could be:
He is educated, progressive, community-focused
He manages modern ideas with the traditions and structures of the church
The friendships of Guy, Angel, Sam and Delia are almost a last stronghold of the Renaissance spirit:
They are artistic, progressive, liberal, and they make a chosen family
This reflects Harlem’s reputation for artistic freedom, queer acceptance, intellectual exchange, and mutual aid
This group is what Harlem once offered: possibility, creativity, community
Economic and social pressures begin to wear on the group:
Guy focuses solely on escape to Paris
Angel struggles and tries to cling to anyone who can bring stability
Delia and Sam have to deal with protests against their family clinic, bringing intense stress
Leland, an outsider from the South, comes in and contrasts them all:
He is deeply traditional, religious, and hostile to the liberalism of Harlem
He comes in at the start of the play and the lives of Guy, Angel, Sam and Delia can be seen as starting to suffer from that point
What is Cleage’s intention?
The clinic being burned down is used by Cleage to symbolise the destruction of progressive ideas:
These ideas defined the Renaissance, so Cleage is showing us how they are fading from prominence
She may be doing something similar with Leland:
Leland is the antithesis of these Renaissance ideas
His arrival brings the downfall of the group, and his conservative and religious views may represent the downfall of the old Harlem
She presents Angel as a symbol of how Harlem’s promise of independence for women has deteriorated:
Struggling to maintain work, she looks desperately to Leland, who she isn’t particularly fond of, to give her stability and a future
Cleage also uses the promise of Paris to contrast with the worn-down streets of Harlem:
This contrast is used to emphasise how Harlem has stopped being the place where Black artists and creatives can thrive
What once was seen as a place of promise and freedom no longer appeals as its spirit changes
By showing this Renaissance period fading away, Cleage then presents us with the consequences for ordinary Black people in Harlem:
The way their group struggles and then is torn apart shows how the shift in attitudes affects their lives
She then makes the audience feel their loss, seeing how dramatically they are all affected
Sam’s death can be seen as symbolic of the death of Renaissance Harlem
Identity
From the start, the play shows that each character’s identity is shaped, challenged, or limited by the social expectations and pressures surrounding them, especially conservative values, religious influence, reproductive politics, and attitudes towards sexuality.
Knowledge and evidence:
Angel’s identity is always unstable, with a lot of her sense of self based around her relationships with men:
She loses her job after confronting the mob man she was dating
Struggling for work and money, she feels even more driven into a search for a man to take the burden, which leads her to Leland
Leland’s seeming stability, rather than his personality, is attractive to Angel
She looks to settle with him, as she believes she will be looked after
Both Guy and Angel are glamorous and loud, but where Guy is proud and confident, Angel uses her bold personality as a front to hide her insecurities:
Both are aware that she relies on him
Guy is an out gay man who is comfortable and confident enough not to hide it:
His sexuality is central to his character, expressed in humour and confidence
He is emblematic of what Harlem gained from its Renaissance
Harlem’s artistic environment allows him to express this openly in ways other parts of America would not
His confidence occasionally contrasts with the danger he faces when conservative attitudes surface, shown when he is beaten up
Delia is a grounded woman, looking to better the lives of women in her community:
She is fighting, through her clinic, for more bodily autonomy for women
Hers is a quieter type of activism
Delia is shaken by the attack on the clinic:
She is just quietly doing what she thinks is right, so isn’t quite as primed for opposition as Guy is
Sam is similar to Delia, his identity as a doctor reflecting science, compassion and professionalism:
He believes in the dignity and autonomy of women in their medical concerns
Leland is entirely different to them all:
He symbolises the growing threat of conservative and religious views shutting down the modern freedoms that had been achieved in Harlem
He is also representative of the confidence people like him have, believing their sense of right and wrong springs directly from the Bible
Leland emphasises sin and morality in the behaviour of the group:
He expects Angel to conform to him, and we see that puts pressure on her
In the end, he kills Sam because he feels the doctor has acted like a godless sinner
Leland breaks the group sense of collective identity, and their chosen family is destroyed by him
What is Cleage’s intention?
Cleage uses the theme of identity to show how personal freedom is shaped, restricted and threatened by social pressures and conflicting views
With Angel, Cleage shows how dependency can destabilise identity:
Her sense of self is closely tied to the men in her life
Identity is also used to show the changing landscape of Harlem:
Guy and Angel are loud and exuberant, which was encouraged in Renaissance Harlem
But incidents like Guy being in a fight, and the protests at Delia’s clinic, show that Harlem is undergoing change, and losing that expressionism
When Guy is beaten for being gay, Cleage shows that the freedom to openly express one’s identity now needs to be reined in
Sam and Delia are used by the author to emphasise grounded, quieter forms of identity and activism:
Their calm, rational beliefs in women’s autonomy and science shows that identity is also shaped by values and moral action, not just personal performance or glamour
Leland shows Cleage demonstrating the destructive force of conservative morality:
In the play, he represents how restrictive conservative religious beliefs can be
By imposing them on others, he restricts the freedom of expressing one’s identity for Angel, Guy, Delia and Sam
He is then evidence of how damaging rigid morality can be, as he kills Sam for his sin
The story examines the emotional consequences of identity under pressure:
Cleage demonstrates that when identity is restricted by social and moral forces, individuals may feel isolated, insecure, or forced to compromise their true selves
Sources
Cleage, P. (1999), Blues for an Alabama Sky (Dramatists Play Service Inc.)
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