Control Of Suffering In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

Trying to control suffering by the numbing of senses and emotions with drugs, only leads to the entrapment of oneself in the suffering. Through jazz music, in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” we see that drugs are tied to, and amplify the unavoidable suffering that takes control and is woven into their lives. The “it” in “it can come again” is not only the drug addiction, but the ways in which addiction “can” bring “again” the reminders of past and present sufferings, without a solution to a “way not to suffer.” We see this in Sonny, who struggles with challenges of being a minority, the death of his mother, and conflict with his brother and step family, and resorting to his heroin addiction to deal with his pain. He is eventually able to deal

Both music and heroin, are outlets to make him feel in control. Music is an extension of Sonny and it allows him to “express [his] content” (OED Online, 2003). It was a way for Sonny to express his assimilated culture in a way that conveyed his emotions and gave him control. “It” in the sentence, “it can come again” can be referred to as the feeling of control over yourself. Both, drugs and music, can be described as a “sort of warm and cool” feeling “to make you feel in control” (53). “Warm” is used as a way to characterize his feeling of “comfortable, and safeness” (OED online, 1921). The word “cool” is symbolic for the release of dopamine when something pleasurable happens. The word “feel” gives a “mental perception, comprehension” (OED Online,2015) of the “control,” which has been stripped from him by his pain and suffering. Using the word “in,” shows the temporary feeling that is “situated within” (OED online, 1899) Sonny. “In” also means “enclose or reclaim,” and is used to show the brief control drugs and music give. The illusion of control, expressed by the word “make”, “manufacturing a mental constitution of behavior” (OED online, 2000), is what leads him back to his outlets for the sense of control. This feeling is addictive. It creates an additional, indirect meaning of “it,” symbolizing his addictive behavior being prominent over other life choices. This addictiveness is emphasized by the word “again” as Sonny’s subconscious wants to return to his “former condition or state of mind” (OED Online, 2012) of being in control. Sonny knows if he continues to play music he will eventually be faced with his feeling of addiction, and will have to deal with the possibility that “it” can come again.” However, this is a risk Sonny is willing to take because he knows that “there is no way not to suffer,” and he must deal with