Brothers' Relationship in Baldwin's Sonny's Blues Sipiora states that, "Characters often perceive (or fail to perceive) the context and implications of the circumstances and relationships they are in. Some characters act in good faith, whereas others do not. As we examine literary personae, it is especially important to judge them in terms of how they react to others" (77) As "Sonny's Blues" opens, the narrator tells of his discovery that his younger brother has been arrested for selling and using heroin. Both brothers grew up in Harlem, a neighborhood rife with poverty and despair. Though the narrator teaches school in Harlem, he distances himself emotionally from the people who live there and their struggles and is somewhat judgmental and superior. He loves his brother but is distanced from him as well and judgmental of his life and decisions. Though Sonny needs for his brother to understand what he is trying to communicate to him and why he makes the choices he makes, the narrator cannot or will not hear what Sonny is trying to convey. In distancing himself from the pain of upbringing and his surroundings, he has insulated himself from the ability to develop an understanding of his brother's motivations and instead, his disapproval of Sonny's choice to become a musician and his choices regarding the direction of his life in general is apparent. Before her death, his mother spoke with him regarding his responsibilities to Sonny, telling him, "You got to hold on to your brother...and don't let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you get with him...you may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you're there" (87) His unwillingness to really hear and understand what his brother is trying to tell him is an example of a character failing to act in good faith. The narrator's disapproval of Sonny's decision to become a musician stems in part from his view of musicians in general. His experiences with musicians have led him to believe that they are unmotivated, drug users, seeking only escape from life. He does not really understand what motivates Sonny to play music until the afternoon before he accompanies Sonny to his performance at a club in Harlem. That afternoon, Sonny explains to him that music is his voice, his way of expressing his suffering and releasing his pent-up feelings.
When Sonny starts to play the piano, he is a little bit nervous, and he does not really feel the music that he is playing. After a while though, he starts to loosen up and play his heart out. The tune he is playing is no longer just a song; it is “Sonny’s Blues” (148). The music he plays “fills the air with life, his life,” and Sonny’s brother finally understands “he could help us be free if we would listen, “ and that Sonny “would never be free until we did” (148). By the end of the story, Sonny achieves his goal of communicating his problems though his
Conflict is opposition between two forces, and it may be external or internal,” (Barker). There are two styles of external conflict that can be examined within the plot of “Sonny’s Blues”. The first of these is character versus society. This is the outer layer of the external conflict observed between Sonny and the society, which his life is out casted from. The meat and potatoes of the external conflict however, is character versus character. Sonny lives a lifestyle that his brother seems to be incapable of understanding. The internal conflict lies within the narrator. It is his struggle to understand his brother that drives the plot. The climax occurs when Sonny and the narrator argue in the apartment. The argument stems from the narrators complete inability to understand Sonny’s drug usage and life as a musician, and Sonny’s feeling of abandonment and inability to make his brother understand him. This conflict appears to come to a resolve at the resolution as the narrator orders Sonny a drink following hearing Sonny perform for the first time. It appears as though this is the moment when the narrator begins to understand, perhaps for the first time, his brother the
In conclusion, Sonny’s Blues depicts the love of a brother through the narrator, who at the beginning was disengaged, unsupportive, and emotionally distant. However, the turning point was when Grace died. This triggered a great turmoil of feelings that overflowed the narrator leading him to a major and impacting change. Instead, he turned into being involved, supportive, understanding, honest, and accepting of his brother Sonny; regardless of the reality that there was no guarantee his pain would not consume his life.
In “Sonny’s Blues” the story starts with the narrator who is Sonny’s brother. Sonny’s brother first knew about Sonny’s arrest by reading the newspaper. While reading it, he was angry and in pain because he was thinking about how Sonny got himself into a bad place. After running into Sonny’s old friend, the narrator is talking to him and the friend is explaining how it was his fault that Sonny is in jail and he is the reason why Sonny started selling and using heroin. After talking to Sonny’s old friend, the narrator is mad and upset that Sonny would do that. Sonny’s brother looks back and thinks that Sonny is a troublemaker, but never to that extent.
The Narrator, helps give the reader insight on the setting (Harlem), his occupation and family (teaching), Sonny, and the situations happening within the community (drugs). The Narrator, seems to be a guide to Sonny. He wants to help Sonny get away from the drugs and focus on better things in life like school. He does not fully understand Sonny’s passion for music.
Sonny’s Blues is first-person narration by the elder brother of the musician struggling with heroin addiction and issues with law. However, on closer inspection it appears that Sonny’s unnamed brother is also very troubled. His difficulties cannot easily be perceived and recognized especially by the character himself. The story gives accounts of the problems Sonny’s brother has with taking responsibility, understanding and respecting his younger brother’s lifestyle.
James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues tells the story of the narrator and his brother and the hardships that they must endure. As Kahlil Gibran States “Out of suffering have emerged the strangest souls, the most massive characters are seared with scars.” (Gibran). In that very quote the real light is shown as it informs the reader that with suffering comes growth and once the person whomever it may be emerges out of the darkness they may have scars but it has made them stronger. The theme of light and darkness as well as suffering play a vital part in this story. For both men there are times in which they have the blues and suffer in the darkness of their lives but music takes the suffering from them.
With the narrator having a responsibility to take care of his brother, he consistently forces the fact that he wants his brother to be well off and not care about his passion in music. The older they got, the more they drove away from each other because of the fact the narrator becomes overly protective with Sonny, and uses a “tough love” strategy though it does not making any positive effect. After they took some time apart, they both realized they cannot emotionally make it in this world without one
Music is a thread throughout the story. In the boys’ childhood, Sonny always loved to play piano; to him that was a way of escaping his environment. Music for Sonny was a way of expressing himself and interpreting the world. Sometimes Sonny felt when he was staying at his older brother’s house, his brother’s wife did not understand Sonny’s mode of communication. This refusal forces him into the streets. When Sonny plays music that’s how he blocks out the world that doesn’t understand him and his passion.
Sonny escapes the harsh realities of life in Harlem, by escaping through the drug heroin for temporary relief, even though he knows it will kill him. Music to him is freedom from the blues of everyday life. The story suggests that music can save people from suffering, or at least minimize the suffering.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In conclusion, music feeds the soul and simply makes things better. It gives Sonny, the barmaid, the street revivalists, and others in the story a chance to go back to a place where life was not so dreadful, even though trouble is waiting with the world outside. Music presents them with something to live for. Undoubtedly it is the most positive aspect of Sonny’s life. His drug arrest was simply the product of his environment and choices. Playing music was his way to try and leave that world behind. Throughout the entire story, music offers nothing but a positive influence on those that are around it be it hearing, listening, or watching.
The central characters in "Sonny's Blues" afford one another a place in which to suffer. The relationships between these brothers and their mother reveal the ways in which family members allow each other moments of weakness in order to access and resolve personal grief. By allowing one another to suffer, the pain becomes easier to bear. They gain a sense of empathy that helps them to face the life ahead of them. The narrator feels "for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet" (439). It is this feeling of companionship that pushes these characters forward against the trouble.
"Sonny's Blues" is filled with examples of music and how it makes things better. The schoolboy, the barmaid, the mother, the brother, the uncle, the street revivalists, all use music to create a moment when life isn't so ugly, even though the world still waits outside and trouble stretches above. Music and the tale it tells provide hope and joy; instead of being the instrument of Sonny's destruction, introducing him to the world of drugs, music is his way out of some of the ugliness. For Sonny and the other characters in this story, music is a bastion against the despair that pervades stunted lives; it is the light that guides them from the darkness without hope.
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
This is apparent when the two are discussing Sonny’s prospects for the future, and the narrator is struggling to understand how Sonny will survive as a musician. Sonny responds, helplessly, trying to explain to his brother why he wishes to play with jazz musicians. To this, the narrator notes that “the word had never before sounded as heavy, as real, as it sounded that afternoon in Sonny’s mouth” (Baldwin 50). Through this, it can be seen that music showcases a deeper internal battle for Sonny, as he struggles to explain his passions to the narrator, unable to come up with a plan for the rest of his life that appears valid to his older