In James Baldwin's, - ''Sonny's Blues'' - The narrator tells the story of the complicated relationship with his brother, Sonny. Although they seem to be distant - at the same time they also maintain the love, brother's share for one another. The story really hit home with me because of the similarities in the relationship between the narrator and his brother. I found they were really similar to the one with me and my older brother. While I filled more of the role of Sonny, my brother played more of the role of the narrator. They both grew up in the inner-city (like ourselves) and also shared a fairly large age gap. In the story the younger brother - Sonny, struggles with a sense of direction in life and in doing so gets lost in the world of heroin addiction - While at the same time battling those demons with his music. I also struggled with a sense of direction in my own life and let myself be consumed by my vices. …show more content…
While the brother's relationship seemed to have a clear distance between them, they still loved and cared for each other.
The author - Baldwin, let's us know of distance in the relationship - early on in the story. When Sonny was sent to prison, as a consequence to his lifestyle - the narrator says, ''And I didn't write Sonny or send him anything for a long time. When I finally did, it was just after my little girl died, he wrote me back a letter which made me feel like a bastard.'' In the letter, Sonny expressed the yearning for comfort from his brother - and the embarrassment to man up to confess the crime to
him. Even though the brothers grew up together in the same environment - The projects of Harlem, they grew up to be polar opposites of each other. The narrator (the older brother) - became a teacher in Harlem, to help enrich the youth - while Sonny became consumed with the iniquities of his surroundings. Sonny found solace in pursuing becoming a piano player, he would practice profusely and frequent bars to play live music with a jazz band. Through the relief, he received from music he also discovered the evils of heroin addiction - which at the time of the story's setting, It was common for a musician to use drugs like heroin. Early on in the story, the narrator recalls a time when he made his dying mother a promise to keep his younger brother Sonny safe - He told her, '' I won't forget, I said. Don't you worry, I won't forget. I won't let nothing happen to Sonny.'' After the passing of the brother's parents, the narrator being the older brother - felt the need to be more of a dominant figure to Sonny. Throughout the story he questioned Sonny's choice of his pursuit to become a musician, He was a teacher - he didn’t' understand why Sonny, would follow a career with no security and stable salary - He wanted a safe path for his brother. When confronted with the dilemma of Sonny's career choice, the narrator admitted to how detached their relationship was by saying, ''I frowned. I'd never played the role of the older brother quite so seriously before. had scarcely ever, in fact, asked Sonny a damn thing.'' Sonny had left for the army to escape the clutches of his heroin addiction. At first he told his brother the reason he wanted to leave was to escape the impoverished area of Harlem - yet later on confessed the true intentions. He said, ''I couldn't tell you when Mama died - but the reason I wanted to leave Harlem so badly was to get away from drugs.'' The relationship of the two brothers had it's ups and downs. It came a time where they always seemed to be arguing, and occasionally lasted an extended period of time without speaking to each other. As Sonny fears his craving for heroin is returning, the two brothers try to come to an understanding with each other. '' It can come again, 'he said, almost as though speaking to himself. Then he turned to me.' ''It can come again,'' he repeated.' ''I just want you to know that.'' The brothers arrive to the nightclub where - Sonny is a regular at. He witnesses, Sonny in his environment - everybody knows him, the crowd riles up as he and his band prepare to play. When Sonny and his band began playing - and seeing his brother struggle on stage letting out his soul into the instruments, exercising his demons on stage. He finally came to an epiphany, to appreciate the art form of the ''blue's.''
While not true for everyone, people are a product of their environment. The surroundings that a person is exposed to, may have a direct influence on the decisions they make in life. Even if someone is smart and has great aspirations, the environment they are brought up in may be holding them back. People who make terrible choices and then are shocked by the consequences are simply coming from a context in which those weren't as bad a choices as they turned out to be. This is the case for Sonny of James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” Although Sonny was an aspiring musician, the surroundings of Harlem would provide opportunities to make poor decisions that may not have been presented to him had he been in a different environment. For this reason,
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.
In "Sonny's Blues" James Baldwin presents an intergenerational portrait of suffering and survival within the sphere of black community and family. The family dynamic in this story strongly impacts how characters respond to their own pain and that of their family members. Examining the central characters, Mama, the older brother, and Sonny, reveals that each assumes or acknowledges another's burden and pain in order to accept his or her own situation within an oppressive society. Through this sharing each character is able to achieve a more profound understanding of his own suffering and attain a sharper, if more precarious, notion of survival.
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
More specifically speaking, Baldwin is assessing through the fictional story the difficulties in understanding and accepting those who do not comply with social norms. Throughout the entirety of the story it is clear that Sonny’s brother cannot understand his brother or his brother’s choices. This inability to identify with and comprehend his brother drives a wedge between the two, until finally, the narrator shows up to a performance put on by Sonny, opens his mind and his prejudices, and begins to finally understand his
James Baldwin, author of Sonny’s Blues, was born in Harlem, NY in 1924. During his career as an essayist, he published many novels and short stories. Growing up as an African American, and being “the grandson of a slave” (82) was difficult. On a day to day basis, it was a constant battle with racial discrimination, drugs, and family relationships. One of Baldwin’s literature pieces was Sonny’s Blues in which he describes a specific event that had a great impact on his relationship with his brother, Sonny. Having to deal with the life-style of poverty, his relationship with his brother becomes affected and rivalry develops. Conclusively, brotherly love is the theme of the story. Despite the narrator’s and his brother’s differences, this theme is revealed throughout the characters’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and dialogue. Therefore, the change in the narrator throughout the text is significant in understanding the theme of the story. It is prevalent to withhold the single most important aspect of the narrator’s life: protecting his brother.
Several passages found throughout "Sonny's Blues" indicate that as a whole, the neighborhood of Harlem is in the turmoil of a battle between good and evil. The narrator describes Sonny's close encounters with the evil manifested in drugs and crime, as well as his assertive attempts at distancing himself from the darker side. The streets and communities of Harlem are described as being a harsh environment which claims the lives of many who have struggled against the constant enticement of emotional escape through drugs, and financial escape through crime. Sonny's parents, just like the others in Harlem, have attempted to distance their children from the dark sides of their community, but inevitably, they are all aware that one day each child will face a decisionb for the first time. Each child will eventually join the ranks of all the other members of society fighting a war against evil at the personal level so cleanly brought to life by James Baldwin. Amongst all the chaos, the reader is introduced to Sonny's special secret weapon against the pressures of life: Jazz. Baldwin presents jazz as being a two-edged sword capable of expressing emotions like no other method, but also a presenting grave danger to each individual who bears it. Throughout the the story, the reader follows Sonny's past and present skirmishes with evil, his triumphs, and his defeats. By using metaphorical factors such as drugs and jazz in a war-symbolizing setting, Baldwin has put the focus of good and evil to work at the heart of "Sonny's Blues."
After discovering what has happened to Sonny, the narrator makes it seem as if he does not care and does not want interference in the life he has worked so hard to create. This is proven when the narrator discusses what has happened to Sonny with one of his brother’s friends. As shown through this quote, the narrator is not concerned about what has happened to his brother and believes it is not his responsibili...
At first glance, "Sonny's Blues" seems ambiguous about the relationship between music and drugs. After all, the worlds of jazz and drug addiction are historically intertwined; it could be possible that Sonny's passion for jazz is merely an excuse for his lifestyle and addiction, as the narrator believes for a time. Or perhaps the world that Sonny has entered by becoming involved in jazz is the danger- if he had not encountered jazz he wouldn't have encountered drugs either. But the clues given by the portrayals of music and what it does for other figures in the story demonstrate music's beneficial nature; music and drugs are not interdependent for Sonny. By studying the moments of music interwoven throughout the story, it can be determined that the author portrays music as a good thing, the preserver and sustainer of hope and life, and Sonny's only way out of the "deep and funky hole" of his life in Harlem, with its attendant peril of drugs (414).
Although, he did what he felt was right at the time. During the time of their mother dying, he was a newlywed and was also getting his career together in the army. After their mother’s death, the narrator was soon returning to his station, leaving Sonny stay with his wife, Isabel and her family. Sonny always had dreams of becoming a jazz musician, but because of the era they were in and being the older brother, the narrator wanted better for Sonny. Sonny was stuck on being a jazz musician and wasn’t letting anything stop him. The living arrangements he had with Isabel and her family wore thin,
I feel having Sonny's brother narrate the story in the first person is Baldwin's way of telling us that Sonny's brother is also suffering but inside, unlike Sonny who takes drugs and sings the blues. Sonny's ...
... the miserable life that African Americans had to withstand at the time. From the narrator’s life in Harlem that he loathed, to the drug problems and apprehensions that Sonny was suffering from, to the death of his own daughter Grace, each of these instances serve to show the wretchedness that the narrator and his family had to undergo. The story in relation to Baldwin possibly leads to the conclusion that he was trying to relate this to his own life. At the time before he moved away, he had tried to make a success of his writing career but to no avail. However, the reader can only be left with many more questions as to how Sonny and the narrator were able to overcome these miseries and whether they concluded in the same manner in the life of Baldwin.
This is quite evident after the demise of their mother whereby the narrator intends to know as the eldest brother what Sonny intends to do in life before returning to war. He contends, “I’m going to be a musician (Baldwin 133).” This does not go well with the narrator who deems other people can embrace that life’s path but not his brother, hence brewing a discrepancy and misunderstanding amid them. It is through Sonny’s choice of pursuing jazz that unveils numerous flaws that characterizes their relationship with the narrator who insist of him completing the school first but eventually admits reluctantly. The extent of confusion and misunderstanding his Sonny is evident how the narrator can hardly imagine him in life he will be hanging in nightclubs in the company of others whom he refers as “good-time-people” (Baldwin 134). Probably, it is Sonny’s choice of jazz career that leads to long durations of silence among them without keeping in touch because the narrator feels his younger brother opted to embracing wrong life. In addition, the instilled notion of how reckless “good-time-people” (134) were by his father yielded to him fighting with Sonny for leading a loose life (Baldwin
In the short story, Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin takes place in Harlem during the early 1950’s. The protagonist of the passage is Sonny, and the narrator (whom we don’t find out his name) is his brother.
The story, “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is about two brothers who journey through two separate paths. The narrator of the story goes through a more successful route than his younger brother Sonny who became a drug addict. Throughout the short story the narrator demonstrates being a good person by taking on the rule of caring for his brother after their mother passed away. In the beginning the narrator fails to watch over Sonny after a big fight occur between them concerning the way Sonny was choosing to live his life. After, Sonny is arrested during a raid for using and selling heroin. It is until the narrator realizes the mistake of not responding to Sonny’s letters from jail that the narrator resumes the role of being Sonny’s protector. Being a good individual involves recognizing errors committed by oneselves rather than blaming someone else. The narrator came to the realization that ignoring his younger brother’s letters was not going to improve Sonny’s well-being. When Sonny revealed his career interest of becoming a jazz musician the narrator was not understanding. In “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator thinks to himself, “I simply couldn’t see why on earth he’d want to spent his time hanging around nightclubs, clowning around on bandstands, while people pushed each other around a dance floor” (Baldwin 86). Towards the end of the short story