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Sonny's Blues
Sonny's Blues
Sonny's Blues
who come to understand each other. More specifically, it highlights, through its two main
characters, the two sides of the African-American experience. The narrator has assimilated
into white society as much as possible but still feels the pain of institutional racism and the
limits placed upon his opportunity. Conversely, Sonny has never tried to assimilate and
must find an outlet for the deep pain and suffering that his status as permanent outsider
confers upon him. Sonny channels his suffering into music, especially bebop jazz and the
blues, forms developed by African-American musicians. "Sonny's Blues" was first
published in 1957 and was collected in Baldwin's 1965 book, Going to Meet the Man.
The story also has biblical implications. Baldwin became a street preacher early in
his life, and religious themes appear throughout his writings. In "Sonny's Blues,"
Baldwin uses the image from the book of Isaiah of the "cup of trembling" to
symbolize the suffering and trouble that Sonny has experienced in his life. At the end
of the story, while Sonny is playing the piano, Sonny's brother watches a barmaid
bring a glass of Scotch and milk to the piano, which "glowed and shook above my
brother's head like the very cup of trembling." As Sonny plays, the cup reminds his
brother of all of the suffering that both he and Sonny have endured. His brother
finally understands that it is through music that Sonny is able to turn his suffering
into something worthwhile.
In "Sonny's Blues," a man finally comes to understand the darkness and
Suffering
The main theme of "Sonny's Blues" is suffering, particularly the sufferings of black
people in America. Although Baldwin presents only one example of overt racism in the
storythe death of Sonny's uncle under the wheels of a car driven by a group of drunken
whitesthe repercussions of the treatment received by black people is omnipresent.
Sonny's father is tormented by the memory of...
Narration and Point of View
"Sonny's Blues" chronicles the relationship between two brothers at various points in their
lives. Baldwin arranges the story's events to show the building of an understanding
between the two brothers. Sonny's brother, who is never named in the story, narrates
"Sonny's Blues." Although the story focuses on the events of Sonny's life, the fact that
readers hear his brother's reactions to and feelings about Sonny's actions broadens the
scope of the story to include the brother's life as well. Baldwin uses this double focus to
bring out one of his most...
Although the story is narrated by Sonny's unnamed older brother, Sonny is the most
important character. Sonny is described in a common stereotype of the time, a stereotype
that his own brother holds until the end of the story: the heroin-addicted jazz musician.
Sonny has just been arrested for "peddling and using heroin'' and must do time in a prison
upstate.
As the story progresses, however, the reader learns more about Sonny's life before the
arrest. He was the "apple of his father's eye," but in his youth he always had a tendency to
stray from what his family thought would be the safe...
Parts:
I: James Baldwin Biography
Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #4: "De facto" means "in reality," or,
"actually existing though not legally or officially established." So "de
facto segregation" would be a separation of the races that "just"
happens, not because of a law saying that African Americans must
live, work, go to school or worship in one place and whites in another.
Do you see any de facto segregation around you, in your school,
neighborhood or city? What are some of the reasons why de facto
segregation might occur? The narrator is teaching algebra to
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IV: Characterization
Like with so many other stories, in "Sonny's Blues," the
dramatic action mainly concerns the characters' changes
or lack of them. The character changes in "Sonny's Blues"
are particularly interesting, and subtle, in part because
the plot features a character's battle with heroin addiction,
and the narrator's efforts to come to grips with this
character's addiction and recovery.
We might begin thinking about characterization in this
story by asking ourselves what we think Baldwin wanted
his story to be about, or more specifically, what Baldwin
wanted to say about drugs and addiction in his story.
Is "Sonny's Blues" a story:
* That moralizes against drug use?
* That tries to explain why people become addicted
to drugs?
* About a man's struggle to kick a drug habit?
* About an artist's struggle to kick a drug habit?
* About the effects of drug use on a family?
* About the ways in which drug use and selfexpression can sometimes serve the same purposes.
Of all of the bulleted items above, only the first is wholly
unlikely. Not that Baldwin or his characters in "Sonny's
Blues" approve of drug use or advocate it, but the story is
far more than simply a cautionary tale warning readers
against drugs or exhorting them to "just say no." In fact,
through the characterizations of the brothers, we see that
Baldwin wants to illustrate the answers to the other
bulleted items. That is, "Sonny's Blues" helps us to
understand the various ways people experience pain and
suffering. As a musician and artist, Sonny tries to make
known, to speak through his music, the pain he sees
around him. Extremely sensitive to that pain himself,
Sonny becomes an addict to try to dull his perception of it.
Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #10: Read Sonny's speech on page
65 of the Norton Introduction to Literature and write a short
paraphrase in your own words. How would you describe Sonny's
attitude towards addiction? The narrator, on the other hand,
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Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #11: What does this quotation mean
to you? How is Sonny "playing for his life?" When Isabel's mother
b. The narrator:
The narrator of "Sonny's Blues" is an upstanding man.
He's a dutiful son to his parents, and a caring husband
and father. He has worked hard to attain the trappings of
middle-class success. Up until Sonny's arrest, he has tried
not to think about things that bother him. It's logical that
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Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #15: How does this quotation about
Sonny's veins bearing "royal blood" connect to the narrator's first
assumption on page 57 that being a musician was "beneath" Sonny?
Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #16: What does the narrator mean
by "the tale of how we suffer . . . must be heard"? Do you agree?
Why or why not? Thus, music has a communal function; it
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Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #18: Who or what in "Sonny's Blues"
might be analogous to the "enemies" referred to in the Biblical
passage?As you can see, the passages images of
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Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #19: How does the image of the
piano, which Sonny plays, with its combination of black and white (or
dark and light) keys, reflect Baldwin's interest in black and white
imagery? How is Baldwin's approach to this theme more complex than
that of the 1980s pop song "Ebony and Ivory <http://itsa.ucsf.edu/
%7Ev896/Other/Lyrics/ebony.txt>"? Also, see Nat King Cole
<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/i?
ammem/gottlieb:@field(NUMBER%2B@band(gottlieb
%2B01511)):displayType=1:m856sd=gottlieb:m856sf=01511> at
the piano.described as darkness or night. The narrator
Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #20: Can you find other places in
the story where Baldwin makes use of the images of darkness and
light? Look at the seasonal setting of the story. Look also at the
flashback scene in which the narrator describes the hour at dusk on a
Sunday.
Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #21 How does Baldwin use the
following images or groups of images? Images of addiction, or the
way heroin is described, on pages 64-5. The image of the sea, in
the final scene in the nightclub. The image of the world, hungry as
a tiger, on page 70.[Return to the Top of this Page]
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Pause, Reflect, and Chat Chat #23: What does it mean that an idea
about a literary text is not immediately obvious. Does it mean merely
that an idea is surprising? What parts of "Sonny's Blue" surprised
you?
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