Light And Darkness In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

An alluring tale of two brothers and their struggles living in the harlem slums called “Sonny Blues” by James Baldwin. Through this story there are two balancing views of light and darkness that go through the characters lives. Baldwin uses these themes to symbolize salvation and hope vs. fear and imprisonment that the main characters struggle with. The narrator of this short story is Sonny’s older brother. It shows Sonny’s brothers perspective of the demons that hide within the people living in Harlem and the dangers they encounter. Sonny’s brother is a young man with a successful career as a math teacher and has a family of his own that he raises. He feels like he is unable to escape the trap of Harlem where he's lived his whole life. Sonny

It shows how music helps Sonny and even his older brother find peace and prosperity. Sonny’s brother explains that the blues are “The tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard”(583). This tale begins with the brothers torment and agony they faced growing up in Harlem, but ends with the rejoice of brotherly love and how that overpowers the pain and darkness of their lives. Sonny’s brother feels like the solution to their problem, the communication through music, isn’t permanent but explains that its the only light they have surrounded by all the darkness. Baldwin interprets Sonny’s hardships through his music, and that becomes a channel for a way to help others understand Sonny as a person. This makes the audience feel compassion toward the two brothers. The music alleviates the suffering and pain within

The narrator shows internal and external conflicts that antagonize the characters throughout the short story. In the beginning the narrator points out that his students are “Filled with rage”(561). He describes the neighborhood and streets to be a “boiling sea”… and “killing streets of our childhood”(566). The setting of Harlem represents anger that is barley suppressed by the people living there. The community is affected and plagued by the horrors of the streets. The brothers mom tells the narrator about the time when a white man ultimately kills their fathers brother and how ever since then their father has had hatred toward the white community. The community of Harlem also has a sense of racism and segregation connected with it. Baldwin shows that this hatred could relate to cultural differences associated between other outside communities and the abundant opportunity given to them vs. the unfair poverty driven streets of Harlem. Sonny’s brother while driving in the cab illustrates the way he perceives the people of Harlem as a “rush, to darken with dark people”(566)… and that “boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves encircled by disaster”(566). This shows that rage is an outcome to the limited opportunities offered to the African American culture. Sonny’s