Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a story about two brothers, their sufferings, their loneliness and the imprisonment of expressions which leads to a communication gap. The narrator is the older brother of Sonny and flashbacks from the past reflect the relationship and tension between the two brothers.
The imagery of the story, amalgamated with the setting brings forth a situation full of despair and hopelessness. The feelings of the protagonist, from the very beginning of the story, are that of guilt, confusion and not knowing what to do. The story begins when the narrator reads about the heroin bust his brother was involved in. He says that he reads the news again and again because he cannot imagine his brother taking part in an illegal activity. From here, the reader gets the first clue about the downbeat feelings felt by the protagonist.
After reading the news, the narrator goes to his school where he teaches and more hopeless situations become apparent. The narrator looks at his students and he instantly knows that most of them are into drugs or will be pushed to this awful habit because they are full of rage and darkness. When he looks at his students, he thinks:
“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. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darkness’s, the darkness of their lives, which were now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone.”
These negative thoughts make the reader think of some impending doom, as if something bad is going to happen. When the students leave the class, the narrator hears their laughter which he describes as:
““It was not the joyous laughter which- God knows why- one associates with children. It was mocking and insular, its intent was to denigrate. It was disenchanted, and in this, also lay the authority of their curses.”
It is also apparent that though it is morning, the thoughts are dark, enigmatic and secretive. The narrator also has an encounter with his brother’s friend which also sets up the somewhat downbeat aura of the story. The friend is a drug addict, a fact that angers the narrator but later the same anger turns into sheer pity and sympathy. The following words spoken by the friend not only enhances the gloominess of the story but also melts away the anger of the narrator:
“I never give Sonny anything but a long time ago I come to school high and Sonny asked me how it feltI told him it felt great. It did. They (rehabilitation centers) send him (Sonny) away some place and they'll try to cure himMaybe he'll even think he's kicked the habit. Then they'll let him loose. That's allI mean, that's allDon't you know what I mean? He asked softly.”
Then the story progresses and the narrators tell that his daughter has died and to ease away some of the pain he writes a letter to Sonny. When Sonny immediately replies, the narrator feels guilty that he waited so long to write to him. Sonny tells him that he would love to meet him so the narrator invites him to his house.
When Sonny comes to his brother’s place, the tense and negative aura changes a bit because the narrator writes:
“When he smiled, when we shook hands, the baby brother I'd never known looked out from the depths of his private life, like an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light.”
There meeting shows that the situation can change a little and there is still hope to make everything alright. In Sonny, the narrator sees a desperate attempt to let go of the past for a brighter future. Their reunion and dinner has been described as a light and cheerful event which indicates the struggle of both the brothers to make their lives better and trouble free.
However, after this incident, the narrator reminisces about the time when his mother told him about his uncle who was brutally murdered by the whites and the whole downbeat aura comes barging in the story. The worries and guilt and helplessness of the narrator surface again.
They both talk about Sonny’s future and what he wants to do. The narrator thinks that he does not takes life seriously as he wants to be a musician. The narrator has no intention of hurting his brother but he truly does not understand why he wants to be a singer. At this Sonny starts to talk bitterly and says:
“I'm thinking about my future. I think about it all the time."
They both then talk about trivial matters, share a laugh but the playful conversation takes an abrupt turn when Sonny starts to smoke in front of his brother and says:
“I just wanted to see if I'd have the courage to smoke in front of you. It was easyCome on, now. I bet you were smoking at my age, tell the truth."
Then Sonny tells his brother that he wants to join the army. He tells him that he does not want to live in Harlem. At this the narrator starts to get afraid for him. He cannot fathom that why Sonny wants to complicate his life even more by joining the navy or army. He does not realize the extent of fear and anger at him but then Sonny suddenly gets outrageous and says:
“I ain't learning nothing in schoolAt least, I ain't learning nothing you'd want me to learnAnd I'm sick of the stink of these garbage cans!"
Sonny himself admits that it gets very difficult to him to control the anger when no body understands him. He is hurt by the fact that his own brother cannot understand his love for music. He says:
“All that hatred down thereAll that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”
In this story, Harlem becomes a downbeat place. The narrator has a life in this place but he is not happy. He is burdened with confusion, helplessness, anger and he is also frightened for his brother. Sonny does not want to live in Harlem. He is desperate tol eave this place not only because of the political scenario but because he has had enough of disappointment. He wants to start a new life with his music in a new place. This idea, however, brings an upbeat note to the whole story.
“Drugs, Music, and Culture have interacted together in various heights of conflict and harmony throughout modern day music, affecting the creators and patrons alike. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is a depiction of this triangle of cultural relations that has affected three generations of America Culture. Sonny, a pathless protagonist of the story finds music as his aim of escaping society’s African American brutal oppression in the 1950’s.”
The narrator’s character and Sonny’s character both reflect certain elements of Baldwin’s character. Like the narrator. Baldwin was the elder one and ad to take care of his siblings. Like him he never got along with his father. But Sonny’s passion for art is equivalent to Baldwin’s passion for literature. Like Baldwin, Sonny initially thinks than due to his color he won’t be able to do anything remarkable in the field of art but Baldwin did through his sheer courage and determination. Sonny is also portrayed as a very talented boy and when he plays music at the end of the story, everyone and everything is mesmerized by the tunes full of passion. At this very moment, the narrator realizes what music means for his younger brother. He writes:
“All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. 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.”
Tracy Sherard writes:
“Sonny’s Blues deals not only thematically with the crossroads between the blues and jazz but addresses the need for a new form of a cultural narrative as a repository for the experiences of African Americans. When the narrator comes to understand his brother Sonny through the latter’s apparent struggle to strike out into the deep unexplored waters of jazz improvisation, the meta narrative quality of jazz is fore grounded; the blues Sonny plays are a commentary on the historical context and function of the blues Baldwin suggests are inadequate to convey the sad stories of urban Harlem. The narrator is only able to listen after experiencing the death of his daughter and after remembering the story her mother told him about the uncle and how it can be inherited by Sonny” (691-705)
The despair of the setting in this story is always in equilibrium with the inner anguish of the characters. The two brother’s fight during the night time, the imagery is such that it perfectly matches the agony of the two characters; “the trickling down of ice on the spine” and “slamming of the window” all represent the hopelessness.
But at the same time, there are instances of optimism and cheerfulness, like when Sonny writes back, when he can’t stop smiling while meeting his brother and when he plays his music. So it can be said that this story has both some upbeat and downbeat incidents which make the story all the more realistic.
Therefore we can’t tag this story as upbeat only or downbeat only. There are more negative, despairing and downbeat instances than the hopeful ones but they are still there. That is why both the characters cherish the few lighter moments because they know they are few and the dark clouds are always lingering on their heads. Moreover as this story was written after the Second World War, the confusion and anger was still there but there was still a struggle for a better life which is evident in this story.
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. Sonny’s Blues. Penguin 60s. Penguin Books Ltd, 1995. Web. <http://www.amazon.com/Sonnys-Blues-Penguin-James-Baldwin/dp/0146000137>.
Clark, T. “"Sonny’s Blues" by James Baldwin Critical Analysis.” Term Paper WareHouse.com. N.P., 04 March 2008. Web. 28 Nov 2012.
Sherard, Tracey. “Sonny’s Bebop: Baldwin’s “Blues Text” as Intracultural Critique”. African American Review. 32. 4(1998): 691-105. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.
