Sonny's Blues: An Analysis Of Two Brothers Trying To Figure Out Life

Bethany Brannon

ENGL 2333

Mrs. Rattan

16 April 2015

An Analysis of Two Brothers Trying to Figure out Life James Baldwin is an inspiring author who has faced a great deal of hardship. He shares his struggles through the characters of his short story, ‘Sonny’s Blues.’ Through his writing techniques, Baldwin creates a sense of connectivity for the reader to the characters. This is what makes him such a distinguished author. In the short story, ‘Sonny’s Blues,’ Baldwin tells a story of two brothers taking care of each other in order to create an intense atmosphere, the tone of Baldwin’s writing allows the reader to relate to the characters and the struggles they face, and he makes it evident how jazz brings them together. Baldwin was born in

In the beginning of the story, the brother finds out about his brother’s arrest on a heroin charge, by reading the newspaper (Unger 58). The brother’s parents have “recognized the evil in the world, whether down home, where drunken white men ran down the father’s brother in a car, or up North, where heroin and prostitution devoured so many of the young,” and this evil has overcome Sonny (Unger 58). The only way of survival was through love and support, to protect from the darkness of the world surrounding them (Unger 58). After the death of both parents, the brother becomes the primary caretaker for Sonny (Unger 58). Throughout the story we start to notice a role change. Sonny, the younger brother, becomes his older brother’s caretaker (Unger 59). However, “more effective than [Sonny’s] words, is his music.” (Unger 59). Sonny had a rocky relationship with his father, he hated school, and feels alienated from his brother (Albert). With no parents and painful gap between his brother, Sonny turns to drugs and runs into trouble with the law. Sonny begins using and selling heroin, and is eventually faced with a jail sentence (Albert). The story ends with Sonny fulfilling his desire with jazz. Baldwin uses jazz as a symbol of “personal and racial suffering and survival,” which ties into his

As the “narrator watches his brother move deep within himself toward the music, he becomes aware of the void that must somehow be made into a livable space” for his younger brother (Werlock). Through this process of understanding, the narrator “resonates to the lifelong effects of the smothering Harlem ghetto, filled with a hidden menace which was its very breath of life,” and finally he gets it