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Control Of Suffering In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

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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 …show more content…

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

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When they talk with each other at the narrator's apartment, Sonny explains to the narrator what heroin felt like for him, and for the first time, the narrator listens to him. Instead, he thinks about the anger he has at Sonny's drug use, mostly because he is angry at himself for not being there for him like his mother told him to. He felt disappointed in himself because he had failed his brother and mother, so he ended up deflecting his anger and hurting his brother. Wanting to make sense of this new side of Sonny, the narrator asked Sonny if he used drugs to feel in control, to which he responded that he uses them "to keep from shaking to pieces." This revelation creates a deeper connection between the two brothers because Sonny opens up about his hardships and how he had nothing to lean on, which made him feel angry about being left alone to deal with his addiction.

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It seemed to control his own will, overtaking his days and actions as if it were just as important as breathing for him. Just as it was his key motivator for moving in, it also seemed as if it was his key motivator for living itself as the narrator began to see that Sonny was not only playing for practice but for his life altogether. It was as if they were living with a sound rather than a person, a sound that no one but Sonny could

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When the narrator accompanies Sonny to the nightclub to listen to him play his music; Sonny’s music portrays his wisdom as he plays about his brother’s frustrations with the trials and sufferings they both endured. Sonny’s artful playing of the blues opens the narrator’s heart to listen genuinely. If one listens to what lies on the inside that is the key to finding oneself. Joseph Flibbert states in the article “Sonny’s Blues” Overview, “In the music he hears, he sees his mother’s face, and that of his little girl … The powerful incantations of Sonny’s art reaches his soul, and for the first time, he listens to the dark voice within”.

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