'Sonny And Sonny's Life In Harlem' By James Baldwin

James Baldwin was born, August 2, 1924 in Harlem, and happened to be the grandson of slaves. Richard Wright, who Baldwin describes as, “The greatest black writer in the world for me,” would be the motivation that help turn Baldwin’s writing aspiration into reality. Baldwin soon became, “One of the most important African-American writers of the mid twentieth century,” (New World Encyclopedia). Though Baldwin died on December 1, 1987 his works still, today have a powerful meaning and representation of black Harlem in the early 1900’s. “Harlem, a large neighborhood within the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan, is known as one of the worst areas for poverty and crime in New York City and the United States” (Finnegan 55).

This is where Sonny and his brother grew up, faced adversity, and decides to resign whether they wish to or not. Even though both brothers left the city in different time the ending result is they came back to where it all started. In the begging of the story the narrator and Sonny are not on good terms, but as the story continues, you can tell each brother wants to bring their old relationships that they had as children back. They try to understand each other through conversation, but neither can grasp each other concept. While reminiscing on the past, the narrator shares a story that was told by their late mother. This moment is very important because it shows the parallelism of two stories, that happened in the same family, almost like a cycle. The story is about their Father and uncle (which neither knew about) because it was kept a secret. His mother shares how their uncle was killed by ignorant white boys with his guitar strapped on his back, after a night of partying with his father. Baldwin writes, “He says he never in his life seen anything as dark as that road after the lights of that car had gone away… I’m telling you this because you got a brother. And the world ain’t changed” (Baldwin 29). That is where the mother asked the narrator to protect his brother even when she is no longer on earth. After she died he kept the promise sort of he sent Sonny to live with future wife and her family, while we went back to the military. When Sonny first starts to show drug abuse his brother tried to ignore the signs and at the same time Sonny did not want help, because it was his way of escaping this causes their relationship to fall. So, in a sense its like the narrator was allowing his own brother to die under his care. The only difference between the narrator and their father was their father was buried with his pain and guilt, while the narrator has a chance to fix a broken light in a dark room in