The Power of Baldwin “Sonny’s Blues” is a story about two brothers who choose very different paths in life in order to achieve the pinnacle of self-expression and acceptance. In doing so, they take a peek into one another’s worlds and learn to accept and appreciate one another for who they are.
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The narrator of Sonny's Blues is not Sonny himself, but Sonny's unnamed older brother. As such, this lends a nuance to the story's point of view, because the narrator is not telling the story of his own life—about which he would, we might imagine, probably know every aspect—but is talking about his brother based on sometimes limited information.
"Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin was first published in 1957, which places it at the heart of the civil rights movement in the United States. That's three years after Brown v.
Byerman, K. “Words and Music: Narrative Ambiguity in Sonny’s Blues.” Studies in Short Fiction 14.4 (1977): 367-372. Print. Murray, D. “James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues: Complicated and Simple.” Partisan Review 24.3 (1957): 327-358. Print.
Being an activist and prolific writer, one can surmise that Baldwin may have seen his talent, as well as his need for self-expression, as tools on which to teach moral lessons.
Nonetheless, the stories in the collection, “Sonny's Blues” in particular, demonstrate Baldwin's ability to transform his social and political concerns into art. In “Sonny's Blues,” Baldwin takes on Harlem's deterioration, religion, drug addiction, and post–World War II America all at the same time.
Baldwin believed in the power of art to save people from suffering, or at least to minimize their suffering. Correspondingly, Sonny uses blues and jazz as an outlet for his feelings, an outlet which his brother at first does not understand.
James Baldwin 's "Sonny's Blues" is the story of a young jazz musician (Sonny) from Harlem, NY who gets addicted to heroin, is arrested for using and selling drugs, and returns to his childhood neighborhood after his release from prison.
The central concern of “Sonny's Blues” is suffering: Baldwin emphasizes that suffering is universal, and that it is also cyclical—that suffering tends to lead to more suffering.
James Baldwin's “Sonny's Blues” argues that the most important relationships in our lives thrive if each person allows the other to grow in their own way and follow the desires they have in their heart.
The narrator of “Sonny's Blues” provides insight not only into Sonny and their life together but also into their environment. Although the story invokes Sonny in its title, it is through the narrator's eyes that Sonny and Harlem are revealed.
"Sonny's Blues" opens as the narrator learns from a newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested for dealing heroin.
The unnamed narrator of the story discovers from a newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested for selling and using heroin. As he prepares to teach his algebra class, the narrator remembers Sonny as a young boy.
“Sonny's Blues” also explores the ways that individual suffering ruins lives, particularly due to people's reticence or inability to talk about their suffering. Baldwin shows how private suffering turns people bitter, estranges relationships, and even leads people to illness, addiction, or death.
Sonny Craves Change Sonny realizes that Harlem has little to offer a poor black teenager, so he tries to get out of town and start a career as a musician. Unfortunately, he gets caught up in the drug scene and is imprisoned for his drug habits.
When Sonny is staying with Isabel and her parents, the narrator says that, “ Sonny was at that piano playing for his life,” this means that Sonny was using music as an escape from the darkness around him. Sonny plays music as a way to cope with the suffering that he has been through.
Jazz music represents passion and escape for Sonny. The very people the narrator negatively associates with jazz are the ones who function as a sort of second family for Sonny. While jazz is alien to the narrator, it's comfortable and comforting for Sonny.
Plot of "Sonny's Blues". The story opens with the first-person narrator reading in the newspaper that his younger brother — from whom he is estranged — has been arrested for selling and using heroin. The brothers grew up in Harlem, where the narrator still lives. The narrator is a high school algebra teacher and he is a responsible husband ...
Updated August 09, 2019. "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin was first published in 1957, which places it at the heart of the civil rights movement in the United States. That's three years after Brown v.
The narrator accepts the invitation because he wants to understand his brother better. At the club, the narrator begins to appreciate the value of Sonny's music as ...
The narrator points out that nothing has really changed since their childhood.
For several months after the arrest, the narrator does not contact Sonny. He disapproves of, and worries about, his brother's drug use and he is alienated by his brother's attraction to bebop music. But after the narrator's daughter dies of polio, he feels compelled to reach out to Sonny. When Sonny is released from prison, ...
Sonny is deeply involved in singing, which makes the narrator have strong memories. The song makes the narrator have a sentimental reconnection with his past, because of the way Sonny expresses himself through music.
Sonny’s Performance and its Impact on Narrator’s Consciousness. As Sonny continues singing, the narrator becomes more involved in his brother’s struggles. Sonny interacts freely with Creole and other band members, which makes him realize the importance of forming strong relationships with family and friends.
The narrator, Sonny’s brother, realizes that music helps Sonny overcome his inner pain and suffering. For a long time, he has been detached from Sonny because they had different perspectives on life. Once they went to a night club where Sonny was offered ...
The narrator watches Sonny playing the piano in the club and concludes that this helps him deal with frustrations he has experienced in his life. He says, “He seemed to have found, right there beneath his fingers, a damn brand-new piano. It seemed that he couldn’t get over it” (Baldwin).
The narrator offers Sonny a drink after he takes a rest from the performance. And according to the narrator, the one had carried him away. (Baldwin).
The narrator manages to reflect on the near hopeless situation which many people in the community face and finds solace in music played by his brother together with other band -mates.
It seemed that he couldn’t get over it” (Baldwin). The narrator discovers that Sonny’s true calling lies in music. He manages to captivate the narrator and other people who are gathered in the club, because of the way he expresses personal emotions through singing.
His youth was his problem, because his older brother was far advanced in terms of experience as a teacher and family man. Statements like the following created significant contrast between the two men.
Sonny’s advantage was his ability to use music to cut through the lies, hate, and hypocrisy.
He fits the usual image of the prodigal son, because he was the youngest child and he was carefree. He stands in stark contrast to his older brother, because he was the born leader.
Sonny made him understand why he was suffering. He was suffering because he could not accept other people’s behavior, especially the way they deal with suffering.
In the beginning of the story the readers were told that law enforcement officers apprehended Sonny because of his drug habit. He was locked up, but the older brother knew about his circumstances through a common acquaintance.
He realized that Sonny was correct when he rebuked him about his narrow view about life. When he admitted his failure to accept Sonny’s view about life, the older brother began to realize other things. The older brother was able to make the admission: “All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
This was made clear when he saw a young black woman dancing to the music coming from a jukebox, and the older brother exclaimed: And I watched her face as she laughingly responded to something someone said to her, still keeping time to the music.
He used religion, initially, as a vehicle for escape from the abuse of his stepfather, a preacher, as well. Being an activist and prolific writer, one can surmise that Baldwin may have seen his talent, as well as his need for self-expression, as tools on which to teach moral lessons.
Sonny’s intensity threatens to unravel the coolness and steadiness of the narrator although he himself battles with hidden unchecked emotions. The narrator sees much of himself in the world and people around him but is able to cover himself and his real emotions with the use of his language and demeanor.
He found familiarity within it; he made it his home, as so many others before him. He was embraced by it because of who he is and could embrace it for the very same reason . The seedy underworld of the jazz clubs and the availability of the quick fix was a perfect storm of escape and abject terror for Sonny.
Much of the religious allusions aid the moralistic undertones and themes of much of his writing. Baldwin spent a portion of his teenage years as a youth minister. He later confessed in an interview that he, in so many words, saw religion as an illusion.
The story is about expression—the freedom and the ability to do so in a circumstance whose very foundation is rooted in the degradation, denial and systematic destruction of a people, its culture and its languages. James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924--December 1, 1987), a prolific 20th century writer, is just one of several of the Negro intelligencia that is able to harness English, the language of Negro Western oppression, and use it effectively to tell the truth about the American Negro as an individual, as a group and as a victim of an institutionally oppressive regime. I view Baldwin’s writings as critical of American racism and I also see him as an effective cultural critic. This particular story digs deep into the mindset of the American Negro during the Civil Rights and Jim Crow eras. I believe I would do the story justice by viewing it through a culturally critical lens. From my observation, Baldwin uses his craft to paint a poignant picture of Negro life in the fictional story of two brothers, struggling in their own way to simply be in their most unique form of personal expression. In doing so, the very craft that Baldwin uses to harness that oppressive language, uplifts and empowers not only the writer himself, but gives positive validity to the life and struggle of a people and their many unique forms of expression.
One Man's Plight Reveals a Greater Suffering. The younger brother of the narrator, Sonny, is a struggling artist and a painfully addicted drug addict/dealer who has been caught in a drug raid. The narrator is reading about it in the papers in an underground, dark subway train.
“After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, —a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” (DuBois 8-9)
Because of the point of view , the information we have about Sonny and his family is limited by what the narrator tells us. For example, Sonny's drug use is a mystery to the narrator, and his struggle to piece together how Sonny became addicted mirrors our own struggle, as readers, to piece together Sonny's character.
The first person narration includes other points of view in the form of reported speech; one good example of this is the narrator's mother's story about... (The entire section contains 3 answers and 529 words.)