Suffering In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

In Sonny’s final concert scene in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, music allows Sonny and his audience to move from suffering to freedom.Throughout the story, suffering is present in all the characters. Living on “the vivid killing streets” (490) of Harlem, two brothers, Sonny and the narrator, were raised in an environment where pain took most of their childhood. Sonny and his brother grew up to see their mom and dad die when they were still children. The narrator’s daughter “died and suffered” of polio as a two year old girl. And most transforming to the brothers was Sonny getting hooked on heroin. Sonny told his brother, “the reason I wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from drugs,” (509). In Harlem, Sonny and the narrator lived in the deep, dark waters, and were

This chasm pushed them deeper and deeper into the waters , and they had nowhere to go. However, the concert scene at the end released Sonny’s audience, including his brother, from the darkness of the world. As “Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life,” (513) and the crowd listened to the blues, the suffering began to escape , and freedom “lurked around” (513) the audience. The death of the narrator’s girl, the tears of the narrator’s wife, the gruesome death of the brother’s uncle, and the chasm that distanced them was finally forgotten. “Sonny’s blues” (512) took over the room as “there was no longer battle in the audience’s faces,” (513). The battle of suffering was over, and a journey towards freedom was beginning because through Sonny’s music the brothers were reconnected. Even though, at first the narrator did not live up to his promise to his mother, “to hold on to [his] brother, “(495) during all the darkness of Harlem, the blues at the end still bring the siblings together again, as the narrator presents himself as his brother’s