The story “Sonny’s Blues” was written by the author James Baldwin, in the year 1957. The short story is about two brothers who are trying to reconnect with one another after a few weeks away from each other. The setting of the story is in Harlem, NY where the author Baldwin grew up most of his life. The author wrote “But houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated the landscape, 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” (81). This meant that the home is not a comfortable place to live in and makes them feel claustrophobic and in prison. The lower social class goes through many life challenges …show more content…
“These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities” (pg#). The suffering in Harlem that the boys are going through comes in many different forms. The boys have to suffer from the limits that the circumstances that have to deal with. “The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure. The child knows they won't talk anymore because if he knows too much about what's happened to them, he'll know too much too soon, about what's going to happen to him” (83-84). The “darkness outside” indicates that suffering can be passed down from generation to generation. The parents would like to protect their children for as long as they can. Suffering is an inevitable part of the individual’s life. The mother was a poor black women who lived in Harlem, and still was able to give her husband permission for weakness. The mother told the Sonny’s brother to watch out for him while she is away. Sonny’s brother said to him “but there’s no way not to suffer- is there Sonny” (95). His brother is finally realizing it is part of the human nature to suffer in the act of growing