Sonny's Blues Thesis

In James Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues”, we are introduced to two brothers. One is a successful teacher and the other, Sonny, who is in prison for selling and using heroin. While preparing to teach his class, the narrator begins to remember Sonny as a young boy and realizes that his students could someday end up in a situation similar to Sonny’s. As the narrator leaves school, he notices one of Sonny’s old friends, who is always high on drugs, waiting for him. They begin to walk together and talk about Sonny. As they are talking, he begins to realize how difficult Sonny’s life has been since he started using drugs and how difficult it will continue to be. Even though many people would view the narrator as not caring enough towards

Most of the time the friends and family members do not understand why the drug attics do what they do for money. For example the narrator says, “Tell me…why does he want to die? He must want to die, he’s killing himself, why does he want to die?” (Baldwin 625) I feel that if more people had the right resources available to help, then it would greatly benefit not only them but their family members as well. When something goes wrong with someone in a family, the other family members begin to think that it was their fault. For example the narrator begins to think, “The moment Sonny and I started into the house, I had the feeling that I was simply bringing him back into the danger he had almost died trying to escape.” (Baldwin 627) I feel that many people in today’s society just jump to conclusions and assume that the downfall of a family member might be their fault, but they don’t understand that it could also not be them but be society as a whole. I know for a fact that my aunt suffered with trying to cope when my cousin went to jail, because she kept saying it was all her fault but in reality, it wasn’t her fault but it was society’s fault for corrupting her daughter like it