Releasing Emotion In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

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Releasing Emotion

Everyone has good days and bad days, good months and bad months, but what people need when they are down is someone to talk to. In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” by James Baldwin, Sonny is in a rough patch in life, and he has no one to share his feelings with. Sonny turns to music to let out his emotions, but like many artists, he struggles to do so. He turns to drugs to make his troubles go away, but this leads to even more problems. Sonny has troubles in his life, but music keeps him sane as he tries to communicate his troubles through the piano, and his art invokes emotion to those who hear it. Sonny has had to deal with many troubles in life, and he turns to drugs for release, but this is just another one of his problems. Sonny is not very old when his …show more content…

Sonny’s brother has been distant towards him, but recently, he has been trying to understand him and help him. Sonny decides to take his brother to a concert to see if he will understand what he is trying to convey through music. Sonny hasn’t played the piano for “over a year” and he is a little bit rusty (147). Sonny also says he isn’t on “much better terms with life” than he was a year ago (147). In a way though, he is in a much better place, because his brother is there for him. 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

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