James Baldwin wrote the short story Sonny’s Blues in 1957 and one of the main themes in it is music. The story is about the relationship between two brothers who lost their parents and the older one takes care about the younger one, Sonny. Music is about expressing feelings and Sonny is a person who is very emotional and prone to the feeling of sadness, which is why he finds comfort in music that takes away all the pain.
The narrator is the older brother and he is a serious man who teaches algebra in school. Sonny is seven years younger than him and he has problems in his life, all of which are related to his mental state because he struggles with his emotions. He uses piano to relieve himself from all the pain and as a creative way to express himself. Having problem with drugs, he tries to abandon Harlem, but he comes back eventually and move in with his brother and his family.
At the beginning of the story, Sonny is arrested and his brother reads about it on the subway in the newspaper. “He had been picked up, the evening before in a raid on an apartment downtown, for peddling and using heroin” (Baldwin 123). The narrator was always worried about Sonny’s fate and about him ending up in a bad way in spite of his intelligence. However, it is obvious that Sonny is a person who has a lot of emotions which cannot be suppressed, while his brother is a rational man who is responsible for his actions.
Sonny is an artist, a jazz musician who plays the piano and music defines him as much as he defines music. The influence is mutual and music fulfills all the voids in his life and makes him feel useful. It is his food for the soul and what makes him relieve his pain. Unfortunately, heroin is sometimes connected to performance and he suffered from addiction before he re-united with his brother. While looking at children at school where he teaches, the narrator says: “I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn’t have been much older that these boys are now” (Baldwin 123). Sonny is a person who is private and reserved and does not share his intimacy with anybody. He does that only through music which is his means of self-expression. Music makes him feel like he has a purpose in life, it makes him happy and gives him a sense of belonging. There is a community of people with similar sensibility who share passion for music and all of them perform together.
The point of listening to music is to feel a revelation and to reach catharsis because life is dull and it needs to be given a meaning. Music is a language which is universally understood and it connects cultures as well as races. People in Harlem are black and Sonny and the members of his band are black as well. They share the same passion and finally, instead of searching for comfort in heroin, they find it in music.
When Sonny was a young boy “he’d had wonderfully direct brown eyes, and great gentleness and privacy” (Baldwin 123). It was obvious from early age that he was a dreamer much like his uncle who lost his life at a young age because he was a dreamer too. That is why the narrator was always worried about Sonny and spent much time to keep him from getting in trouble after their parents passed away. This was not always possible because Sonny cherished his independence and wanted to make his own decisions which were not always in his best interest. However, when he found his life path in music, everything changed and he became a better person.
When Sonny expresses his wish to become a jazz pianist, his brother is not very supportive. He feels unusual because he was never very interested in his brother’s future, especially because Sonny was still going to school. The narrator is both perplexed and worried about the fact that Sonny wants to become a musician because he has prejudice against musicians: “It seemed – beneath him, somehow. I had never thought about it before, had never been forced to, but I suppose I had always put jazz musicians in a class what Daddy called good-time people” (Baldwin 134). At this time he does not think that music is art and that jazz music is pure emotion which affects human soul. He believes that suffering in life is a necessity and that people are not supposed to do what they love to do in life. It seems that he did not choose to be an algebra teacher, but that profession happened to him. On the other hand, Sonny feels music and it is the only way for him to feel alive and to open himself to the world since he is a private person and it is not healthy to hide emotions.
After Sonny moves in with Isabel, his sister-in-law and her parents, while his brother is in the army, he begins working on his music. He is very diligent about it and he practices the piano all the time. The narrator says: “Isabel finally confessed that it wasn’t like living with a person at all, it was like living with sound” (Baldwin 137). Such people are not easily understood because they have a certain idea about what their world should be like and they struggle to create it. There is a reason why some of them resort to taking drugs, but the lucky ones find out that it is not the best solution. The following sentence describes Sonny well: “it was as though he were all wrapped up in some cloud, some fire, some vision all his own; and there wasn’t any way to reach him” (Baldwin 137). At this time, Sonny was still looking for his life path and he was very sensitive. It was later that he understood how to express himself and how to reach out and make intimate contact with his brother as well and this was through music. Music is a catalyst for emotions and it turns out that all the people are capable of feeling the music in the right way which is unique for each person.
There was always a close connection between the two brothers although they were completely different form each other. However, when the narrator’s daughter died, it made him think of Sonny. “I was sitting in the living room in the dark, by myself, and I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble made his real” (Baldwin 139). At the moment of tragedy, the narrator thinks about his brother who is in trouble as well because he is afraid of the possibility of losing him as well. It is not that the narrator does not understand Sonny, but he is afraid for Sonny’s life. The fact that the title of the story is Sonny’s Blues depicts Sonny’s personality well. Blues is about expressing emotions and it is a part of African-American cultural heritage. The notes express troubles people are going through so that they could feel better. “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness” (Baldwin 147). This is the way blues makes people feel and this music is performed for a reason to make people realize that they are not alone and that they can share their troubles with their community. Jazz and blues are about sharing emotions and each person has their own interpretation of this music which makes it therapeutic.
The role of music in Sonny’s Blues is to establish connection between people and make them close to one another. Through music, they suffer together, go through crises and troubles, but they also share joy and happiness. When a musician performs “what is evoked in him, then is of another order more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours”. Music brings people together and makes them share their most intimate moments. What cannot be expressed through words can be expressed through music and even people who do not care about jazz feel the emotion. The whole event is exciting and the performance has the purpose of making people feel better by evoking their emotions and by making them feel that life is beautiful after all.
Works Cited
Sonny's Blues. London: Pengun 60s, 1995. Print.
