In Sonny's Blues, many of the characters face multiple conflicts, both external and internal. One of the most central of these conflicts is the internal struggle of Sonny to cope with the stress of his own life, most notably through his use of heroin. Many other conflicts in the story, such as the narrator's frequent arguments with Sonny, revolve around Sonny's internal conflicts. An example revealing conflict within the story occurs when the narrator gets into a fight with his brother: ". . . we had a fight, a pretty awful fight, and I didn't see him for months. . . . I tried to make it up. But there were lots of other people in the room and Sonny just lay on his bed, and he wouldn't come downstairs with me, and he treated these other people