Martin Luther King once said, “As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” At the end of the 19th century, African Americans were only faced with poverty, slavery, and racial oppression. African Americans were not allowed to vote or exercise any fundamental rights. By the turn of the 20th century, some of them migrated to Harlem, New York, and created one of the most remarkable eras of cultural expression in the history- the Harlem Renaissance. Baldwin tries to convey the life in Harlem before the renaissance in Sonny’s Blues, which follows the …show more content…
story of two brothers and their struggle growing up in Harlem. Baldwin uses contrast, symbolism, and epiphany to illustrate that although suffering and cruelty are inevitable, when channeled through art, they carry an immense redemptive potential. Through contrast, Baldwin emphasizes the suffering the brothers faced while growing up in Harlem.
The narrator says, “[the children] came down into the streets for light and air, and found themselves encircled by disaster” (80).When he returns to the streets where they grew up in Harlem, he realizes that the children growing up are “smothering in these houses,” just as he and Sonny did (80). They go out on the streets to seek the light, but instead, all they find is drugs and violence. He also describes the pain involved in escaping Harlem: “The night is creeping….what’s going to happen to him” (82). The darkness is embracing them. It’s fearful and soothing at the same time that the child doesn’t want to leave it. The light is an awareness of the darkness, and sometimes it’s too bright and not reassuring, that the child is afraid to leave the darkness and face the harshness of reality. This contrast of darkness and light highlights the pain associated with living in …show more content…
Harlem. Furthermore, Baldwin uses symbolism to reinforce the idea that there is always relief from the suffering, as well as a chance at redemption.
When Sonny finally opens up to his brother and describes why he used heroin as an escape, he says that he used to feel“black and funky and cold” because he couldn’t express the rage and pain inside him (95). However, at the end of his performance, the narrator says, “Creole and Sonny let out their breath, both soaking wet, grinning” (100). Sonny’s coldness is transformed into sweat because he’s finally been able to let out the pain and suffering through music. In addition to the symbolism of water, the narrator also uses the biblical reference: “it glowed and shook above [Sonny] like the very cup of trembling” (100). The cup is used in the bible as a symbol of salvation. The trembling cup symbolizes Sonny’s endurance of pain, while also offering the chance of redemption and peace. As a jazz musician, Sonny took all his pain and transformed it into something beautiful. Thus, through symbolism, Baldwin accentuates the possibility of redemption and
salvation. Lastly, Baldwin creates a moment of dual epiphany, and demonstrates the bothers’ mutual realization of each other’s pain and loss. At the end of the story, the narrator is finally able to connect and communicate with Sonny through music. He says, “[Sonny] found new ways to make us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer…...it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness” (99). He describes Sonny’s express of suffering and pain through music as a hope that could get them through the darkness and the harshness of life in Harlem. Sonny experiences epiphany as well, and understands that he can’t escape pain by using drugs, but rather endure it and transform it into an art. The narrator says, “Creole [knew] that Sonny was in the water….Creole wasn’t trying any longer to get Sonny in the water. He was wishing him Godspeed” (99). As sonny plays, the band leader, Creole, seems to be leading Sonny into the light. While he is playing, Sonny learns to swim through the dark waters and stay afloat. Baldwin conveys the message that there’s always a chance at redemption, as soon as we move from the darkness of reality to the light of hope and possibilities. To return to Martin Luther King’s quote from the start of this essay, are we able to choose how to respond to pain and face the obstacles of life? According to Baldwin and the characters of this story, we always have a chance to rise again after we fall, and we can always find a meaning in a hollow and a harsh life. Although giving up to the darkness might be the easiest way, it’s not until we overcome the suffering and pain that we really find a purpose to live for. We always have the choice to create beauty out of our pain or to be forever encompassed in our fear and rage.
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.
We are all part of a society where justice and respect must be followed if we want to have a nice image of ourselves and be accepted by others. In the short story, Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, two brothers are struggling to accept each other. Until the brother listened to Sonny and accepted what he wanted to do in life and who he was as an individual, the brother was in the darkness with his brother and himself. Through flashbacks and the characters, we were able to see how their life was before their mother and father died and what actually forced Sonny to take drugs. This story showed that without acceptance, people have difficulties to continue their life in happiness, so they stay in the darkness until they accept themselves and the people surrounding them.
In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the unspoken brotherly bond between the narrator and his younger brother Sonny is illustrated through the narrator’s point of view. The two brothers have not spoken in years until the narrator receives a letter from Sonny after his daughter dies. He takes this moment as an important sign from Sonny and feels the need to respond. While both Sonny and the narrator live in separate worlds, all Sonny needs is a brother to care for him while the narrator finds himself in the past eventually learning his role as an older brother.
Reilly, John M. " 'Sonny's Blues': James Baldwin's Image of Black Community." James Baldwin: A Critical Evaluation. Ed.Therman B. O'Daniel. Howard University Press. Washington, D.C. 1977. 163-169.
All of humanity suffers at one point or another during the course of their lives. It is in this suffering, this inevitable pain, that one truly experiences life. While suffering unites humankind, it is how we choose to cope with this pain that defines us as individuals. The question becomes do we let suffering consume us, or do we let it define our lives? Through James Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues”, the manner by which one confronts the light and darkness of suffering determines whether one is consumed by it, or embraces it in order to “survive.” Viewing a collection of these motifs, James Baldwin’s unique perspective on suffering as a crucial component of human development becomes apparent. It is through his compassionate portrayal of life’s inescapable hardships that one finds the ability to connect with humankind’s general pool of hardship. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” makes use of the motifs of darkness and light to illuminate the universal human condition of suffering and its coping mechanisms.
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."
Baldwin’s father died a broken and ruined man on July 29th, 1943. This only paralleled the chaos occurring around him at the time, such as the race riots of Detroit and Harlem which Baldwin describes to be as “spoils of injustice, anarchy, discontent, and hatred.” (63) His father was born in New Orleans, the first generation of “free men” in a land where “opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else.” (63) Although free from slavery, African-Americans still faced the hardships of racism and were still oppressed from any opportunities, which is a factor that led Baldwin’s father to going mad and eventually being committed. Baldwin would also later learn how “…white people would do anything to keep a Negro down.” (68) For a preacher, there was little trust and faith his father ...
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.
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
In conclusion, Sonny’s Blues depicts the love of a brother through the narrator, who at the beginning was disengaged, unsupportive, and emotionally distant. However, the turning point was when Grace died. This triggered a great turmoil of feelings that overflowed the narrator leading him to a major and impacting change. Instead, he turned into being involved, supportive, understanding, honest, and accepting of his brother Sonny; regardless of the reality that there was no guarantee his pain would not consume his life.
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 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.
The short story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is written in first person through the narrator. This story focuses on the narrator’s brother sonny and their relationship throughout the years. This story is taken place in Harlem, New York in the 1950s. The narrator is a high school algebra teacher and just discovered his brother in the newspaper. This story includes the traditional elements to every story, which consist of the exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution.
... 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.
Racism and the sense to fulfill a dream has been around throughout history. Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “I, Too” both depict the denial of ethnicity mix in society and its impact on an African American’s dream. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” uses jazz music to tie the belief of one’s intention and attainment to the black race. The two main characters are different in a way of one fitting into the norm of the American Dream and the other straying away from such to fulfill his own dream. All three pieces of writing occur during the same time in history in which they connect the black race with the rejection of the American Dream and the opportunity to obtain an individual effort by a culture.