"Sonny's Blues," by James Baldwin

In “Sonny's Blues,” much of what occurs centers around the narrator’s younger brother, Sonny.   The excerpt describes the life Sonny lives and the hardships within it.  It also describes the narrator’s life and thoughts as well as the relationship he has with his mother.  To begin with, the narrator suggests his brother committed suicide.  This shows how the narrator disapproves of Sonny’s lifestyle, how he feels that Sonny has thrown away his life through drugs and music.  Surprisingly, Sonny is described as “not scared, timid, or obsequious,” and the narrator is described as “dutiful,” “cautious, frightened, and retiring.”  Out of the two brothers, one wouldn’t expect Sonny, the more confident brother, to be the one to “commit suicide.”  Instances that foreshadow this suicide include Sonny being admitted to a New York hospital and Sonny being arrested for peddling and using heroin.  A symbol in the excerpt is Harlem.  Harlem symbolizes Sonny’s despair, grief, and drive to freedom.  Also, as the narrator describes a story in a book a student gave him, many parallels can be found between the story and the narrator’s life.  They include Harlem as a place of despair and the safer, older brother being a teacher.  Describing the younger brother in the story as “menaced by his need to make life bearable” may give some insight into why Sonny chooses to live the life he does.  In this excerpt, many contrasts are made between light and darkness, life and death, and entrapment and freedom.  A couple examples are the narrator’s dad feeling like the night his brother died being the darkest night he'd ever seen, and Sonny “[looking] out from the depths of his private life, like an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light.”  All of these contrasts mentioned also serve as themes alongside isolation, which is reinforced through the characters mostly keeping to themselves and the schoolboys the narrator teaches being together in mindset but physically alone.  The end of the excerpt presents the audience with irony.  Before, the narrator saw Sonny as a lost cause and as a dying man.  After seeing Sonny play his instrument, the narrator realizes the connection a man’s sorrow has with his instrument.  The narrator suggests that Sonny’s music provides a relieving sense of freedom that only Sonny can take the audience to.  Pointing back to the contrast between light and dark, the narrator lastly describes Sonny as being enlightened by a glowing light, suggesting the narrator’s new view of Sonny as vivid and free.