The Healing Power Of Music In Sonny's Blues, By James Baldwin

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The short story "Sonny’s Blues" by James Baldwin has many deep meanings that are found throughout the story this includes the concepts of the healing power of music, the bond between brothers, and being a captive both physically and mentally. These are the main themes which are shown throughout the story as the characters develop further. The story starts off in Harlem New York.

The story Sonny’s Blues begins with the narrator who’s younger brother Sonny went to jail for a heroin use, and has not written to his brother or checked up on him until his daughter died of Polio he remembers his brother at last and as he tries to get through the day he cannot forget his brother no matter how hard he attempts to. He then later on encounters his brother’s …show more content…

He constantly practices the piano which annoys Sonny’s wife’s family who he is living with until his schooling ends. Sonny looks to music as a means to obtain freedom from his suffering to find the light so to speak. This passion for music makes Sonny go to the extent that he skips school to hang out with Jazz musicians. His sister in law’s mother eventually finds out and then Sonny leaves shortly afterwards and joins the navy. Sonny does not send any word to his brother for a long time leaving his fate uncertain to the narrator until eventually he sent him a postcard from Greece. Sonny eventually returned to New York and a after a while the two brothers eventually get back in touch. When the two brothers finally do see each other again the narrator has his brother live with him, one night when Sonny comes home he invites his brother to come and see him play at a Jazz club where everyone knows Sonny and has respect for him. Then as he watches Sonny play he sees all of Sonny’s struggles get put into his music as his passion is pouring out of him, and he realizes how the music helps Sonny with throughout all of his suffering and he sees how it can help himself, "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now. I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his: that long line, of which we knew only mommy and

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