Sonny's Blues Thesis

There was many Tour de force and tongue in cheek in “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin. The story talked about his brother Sonny who had depression and they both grew up in poverty. Sonny was a depressed young individual who struggled with drugs with a notable quality that is his expressive and emotional side.

Sonny’s mother died and Baldwin’s mother told him to take care of his brother but he broke that promise and felt guilty. Sonny and Baldwin grew apart after Baldwin joined the army and tried to fix the relationship after his child died. Sonny did Heroin to deal with his inner demons and depression. Sonny recognized the problem after his rehabilitation, started to play piano, and follow his dream to be a pianist. Baldwin soon recognized that Sonny needed to play Jazz and Blues on a piano at the bar; the brothers rekindled their relationship since then. Sonny was a depressed young man with a growing potential in life.

In the reading, Sonny was portrayed as a loser that grew up in poverty and kept on being haunted, as he was African American young man stuck and born in Harlem.

People were racist during that time; his father’s brother died from an accident and no one helped him. He kept on thinking about the difficulty of how it seems impossible to be successful. He had conflict within himself to get out by moving out of Harlem and start a new career as a pianist. The difference between him and his brother is that Sonny wants to leave Harlem and the lifestyle. Even when Sonny was in rehabilitation and in prison, he felt trapped. When he was released, Baldwin portrayed him as being a caged animal that is trying to get out from the consequence that prison had on him and from the Heroin addiction that ushered him to his

detention.

As he grew older, he was easily affected to do heroin from his environment as he did Heroin to deal with his depression, as he had always kept his emotions bottled in. He learned how to play the piano when his brother was in the army and he started to pursue Jazz and Blues as a career. Music was a healthier drug for Sonny; he only could express his true feelings and frustrations through it, as it doesn’t involve talking. Sonny’s Jazz and Blues provided him a probability to recovery in his life; however it still has the ability to wreck it as well as there are drugs in the music world.

Making music was his way of trying to express himself temporarily to his audience. He makes his music to cope with his distress and disasters of his life and the lives in his environment. He converted that pain into creative expression that for a short time saves his audience.

His brother had always wanted Sonny to have a profession with a continuing salary. To prove to him that Jazz and Blues is the only thing that made him satisfied with his life. Sonny became a pianist in the Jazz and Blues genre and invited his brother to watch him play on stage at a bar. This made Baldwin realized that it is amazing that he is trying to rekindle their relationship and somehow Jazz and Blues are the way to heal Sonny’s wounds. This was the first time that Sonny was able to talk to his brother without major disagreements through his music and his brother was able to listen to how great he is. This showcased his determination to life fulfillment even with his expressive and emotional side. He is a stubborn young man with a high motivation to leave Harlem even with a lack of ambition and success would be playing Jazz and Blues in Downtown Greenwich.