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The Short Story “Sonnys Blues” by James Baldwin takes place in Harlem during the early 1950s. The city plays a pretty important role in the short story, since part of the reason Sonny turns to drugs is to escape the feeling of being trapped by his surroundings. Harlem is not a pretty sight. There is crime going on everywhere, poverty in the street, and it seems to be a location where growing up you have to be very strong to not fall into the trap most people do which is the life of drugs and crime. As Sonny and the narrator are driving back to the narrator's apartment (after Sonny gets out of jail), the narrator starts to really think about the streets in this neighborhood where he and Sonny grew up: “We hit 110th Street and started rolling up Lenox Avenue. And …show more content…
I'd known this avenue all my life, but it seemed to me again, as it had seemed on the day I'd first heard about Sonny's trouble, filled with a hidden menace which was its very breath of life.” The Harlem streets in this story seem to have a life of their own in this story, and it seems that there’s a danger in them that cannot be avoided. This gets the narrator thinking because this is the environment in which Sonny fell into temptation, and here he is bringing him back to where it all started "back into the danger he had almost died trying to escape". Harlem seems to play as big of a role, if not bigger role than most of the characters in this story. There is another very important setting in Sonny’s blues, something much smaller than Harlem, this location being the nightclub, where Sonny plays at the end of the story.
This night club is very different from Harlem. This club is an escape from Harlem for Sonny, somewhere he can cancel out all the outside noise. When Sonny is in the club he deals with his problems by making music. Sonny is a very popular figure in the club, and many of the people there look out for him, they want him to play the music he’s good at playing. The club is Sonny’s safe spot, where he can go and just be Sonny, not the drug addict, and not the criminal. Even though the narrator never had nor will ever agree with what Sonny did in terms of drug abuse, towards the end of the story he begins to understand how one could get into that lifestyle. The narrator even begins to think that many of his own students could be doing hard drugs and he even says that "maybe it did more for them than algebra could". The narrator is very aware of his surroundings, and although he grew up in the same environment and was able to achieve to dream middle class lifestyle, he begins to accept that maybe not everyone will, or will be as lucky as he
was.
The older brother, the narrator, finds himself struggling at the beginning of the story. While riding the subway, he reads in the paper that Sonny has been arrested for possession of drugs. During his day of teaching, he reflects on prior years with Sonny and their past adventures as young boys. He remembers Sonny's "wonderfully direct brown eyes, and great gentleness and privacy." The narrator sees his brother as a good boy, not "hard or evil or disrespectful." He wonders how many of his algebra students are similar to Sonny in appearance and personality along with his drug habits. This comparison allows the older brother to conclude that Sonny was probably not arrested on his initial use of drugs. It also allows the narrator is see that Sonny may be like most of the other young boys in Harlem.
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.
Sonny was brought up in this very Harlem and learned how to steal and fight his way through life. However, life fought him back at every opportunity. “By the time I was nine years old, I had been hit by a bus, thrown into the Harlem River (intentionally), hit by a car, severely beaten by a chain. And I had set the house afire” (Brown 12). Sonny’s childhood was filled with so much mayhem that it would be ridiculous for anyone to expect his turnaround into a functional adult. Nevertheless, he accomplished just that . He did it by learning from not only his mistakes, but from others as well. Seeing how everyone he knew was going to prison, dying, or becoming a junkie, Sonny decided that he wanted a better life than what the streets of Harlem could offer. Sonny grew beyond his environment until he finally stopped doing drugs, he got a job, and went to college. He overcame the low expectations of him and ended up being better than what anyone had expected. Although, his personal growth was not a quick one, it was slow, painful and has relevance throughout the entire
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.
According to his brother, who narrates "Sonny's Blues," Sonny was a bright-eyed young man full of gentleness and privacy. "When he was about as old as the boys in my classes his face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it; and he'd had wonderfully direct brown eyes, a great gentleness and privacy. I wondered what he looked like now" (Baldwin 272). Something happened to Sonny, as it did to most of the young people growing up in Harlem. His physical journey growing up in the streets caused a great deal of inner turmoil about whom he was and what kind of life he was to have. One thing for sure, by the time his mother died, Sonny was ready to get out of Harlem. " 'I ain't learning nothing in school,' he said. 'Even when I go.' He turned away from me and opened the window and threw his cigarette out into the narrow alley. I watched his back. 'At least, I ain't learning nothing you'd want me to learn.' He slammed the window so hard I thought the glass would fly out, and turned back to me. 'And I'm sick of the stink of these garbage cans!' " (Baldwin 285).
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" the symbolic motif of light and darkness illustrates the painful nature of reality the two characters face as well as the power gained through it. The darkness represents the actuality of life on the streets of the community of Harlem, where there is little escape from the reality of drugs and crime. The persistent nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a means of escaping the darkness of their lives. The main character, Sonny, a struggling jazz musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing the creativity and artistic ability that lies within him. While using music as a way of creating a sort of structure in his life, Sonny attempts to step into the light, a life without drugs. The contrasting images of light and darkness, which serve as truth and reality, are used to depict the struggle between Sonny and the narrator in James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues."
When first reading “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, it may initially seem that the relationship between musicians and drugs is synonymous. Public opinion suggests that musicians and drugs go hand and hand. The possibility lies that Sonny’s passion for jazz music is the underlying reason for his drug use, or even the world of jazz music itself brought drugs into Sonny’s life. The last statement is what the narrator believes to be true. However, by delving deeper and examining the theme of music in the story, it is nothing but beneficial for Sonny and the other figures involved. Sonny’s drug use and his music are completely free of one another. Sonny views his jazz playing as a ray of light to lead him away from the dim and dismal future that Harlem has to offer.
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.
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
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."
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).
After reading the short story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, I find there are two major themes that Baldwin is trying to convey, suffering and irony. The first theme that he brings out and tries to get the reader to understand is the theme of suffering. The second theme that the author illustrates is the theme of irony.
First, the exposition of this story starts with the narrator who discovers Sonny in the newspaper for using and selling heroin. As he reads the paper on the subway he couldn’t believe what he had read. This made him reminisce the days that
Under capitalist societies, the only thing one owns - according to Karl Marx - is their ability to work. In a society that revolves around profit and private ownership, a person can only sell their labor. This is the type of society in we see the story, “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin operating in. This type of society is one the main reason for such a big difference between the two brothers in this story. Sonny, the narrator's brother, is a jazz musician. A jazz pianist to be more precise. The narrator comes from a military background, with now stable housing and work situations. Compared to Sonny, a drug meddling musician in Harlem, the narrator, a math teacher and family man, seems to be the more successful out of the two. Just the beginning
The speeches given by Baldwin match the intensity of the short story, Sonny's Blues. For example, James Baldwin addresses the impressionable inner-city students at Oakland Castlemont High School about what is means to black in America. On June 23rd, 1963 Baldwin informs the young adults about the importance of education, that education opens the world to someone. When a person is more educated about their surrounding they are able to discover all that it has to offer. Many young adults have a difficult time solving problems because their development is still happening. Baldwin teaches the students about dignity, the dignity that is worth expressing is when you have pride in oneself. Some people allow the perception of others to signify their