Suffering In Sonny's Blues, By James Baldwin

Society is our community. Or more specifically, the people around us which influence what we say, do, and how we act to those who aren’t members of our community. Throughout Sonny’s Blues, the narrator is surrounded by a society that is poor and can be loosely described as “broken” or “corrupted.” Our narrator understands this, undoubtedly, but does not experience it in a way that his brother does. He is partially unaffected by the societal problems around him and does not bother following others down the path they have chosen. However, this area and people living in it cause conflict in his brother. Sonny, in a way, is more emotionally connected with society. He comprehends that there is “no way not to suffer,” and that the people, specifically

the African-Americans (blacks), and so they try to find ways to get through this suffering; through drugs, music, or whatever they can find to release some internal pain.

Sonny frequents questions, “Why do people suffer?” to those important to him, such as our nameless narrator, but answers his own thoughts. He again repeats that there isn’t a way to not suffer. To him, it’s a part of the life that he and his brother are living in.
The community affects Sonny in several ways. In the beginning of the short story, our narrator learns that his brother was placed in jail for the use of heroin. Sonny later comments that it was his way to escape his suffering; to stop drowning in this despair he has. Supposedly, society could have cause Sonny to use drugs in some way to keep from suffering. With the setting, the reasoning is plausible. However, when Sonny stays with Isabel’s parents his depression is clearly expressed through his obsession with the piano and ignorance of his hosts. Thus, when her parents decide to try and break down Sonny’s protective emotional walls, he feels as

though “they had penetrated his cloud” and they had “stripped him naked and were spitting on that nakedness.” Sonny realizes that his salvation was also Isabel’s family curse. While he was creating a haven for himself he was also torturing those around him. Ironically, this can be a broader subject. Society greatly influenced this depression, certainly, but if it were to be a wider observation, to be viewed symbolically, it is much like society itself. The people in the community create disasters while trying to make their own lives perfect. Therefore, Sonny himself can be a representation of society’s catastrophes. He is the victim of the community’s suffering. Sonny can also be the symbol for all of society’s citizens who are affected by the setting and those around them. For him, music is his life’s salvation such as a person’s family could be their own. However, the loyal narrator is expressed as the people who are not affected by society. The ones who refuse to acknowledge the pain and suffering around them and carry on with their daily lives in an almost robot-like state. They marry, have children, and live on without any sort of relation to society or desires to change it.
In Sonny’s Blues, the society in which the narrator and Sonny live in is quite different than where we do.

The people are acknowledged as “suffering” by multiple characters, and they seem to be split into two halves: those who understand the emotional balance in the society and those who are oblivious. As previously stated, Sonny is one of the few who know how people think and act in their society. It is brutal, depressing, and repetitive to the blacks in the community. They also show little to no opinion for religion, excluding Sonny and the narrator’s mother. Additionally, the mother is the heavenly figure; the righteous character. This also influences how Sonny and the narrator carry themselves throughout the story. The citizens seem to either ignore the revival meeting or were deeply affected by it. During this time, they are still seen as inferior to white people and although this still occurs today, the conflict is more simply stated in this setting. The story revolves around the blacks and how society affect them. Due to the background Sonny and the narrator’s mother provides, it is inferred that they are treated harshly (i.e. the story of the father’s

brother).
To conclude simply, Sonny’s Blues is a deeply emotional story about society and how it affects those who are a part of it. The effects can be either positive or negative. The main character, for instance, was negatively affected by the community he lived in and resorted to drugs to "not suffer” or to escape the inevitable “drowning” that he frequently rants about. He sees society in a way that is opposite of his brother, who only participates when needed and is not particularly changed by the setting around him. Our narrator is typically passive and only experiences brief moments of clarity once Sonny is involved. The setting in this short story is a typically brutal and depressing neighborhood that was commented to be “nicer in older days.” Therefore, this harsh society the brothers are deeply changed and see things differently.