"Sonny's Blues"Summary:   The story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin tells of two African-American brothers -- the narrator, a schoolteacher, and Sonny, a jazz pianist -- who struggle to understand each other. This overview focuses on the evolution that Sonny and the narrator undertake throughout the story and how music impacts their ability to understand one another.

The Evolution of a Relationship through Music

In "Sonny's Blues", theme, form, and image blend into perfect harmony and rise to a thundering climax. The story, written in 1957 carries a vital social message for us today. It tells of two black brothers' struggle to understand one another. The older brother, a well-off Harlem algebra teacher, is the unnamed narrator. The younger man is Sonny, a jazz pianist who, when the story opens, has just been arrested for peddling and using heroin. In Sonny's Blues, chronological time is upset yet the author, Baldwin, allows everything to come together in the end. In "Sonny's Blues" the tragedy and suffering can be transformed into an art such as blues music. This can be viewed as a catalyst for change, as the narrator begins to understand not only the music, but also himself and his relationship with Sonny.

The narrator learns his brother Sonny has been arrested from reading the newspaper and this disturbing discovery initiates the two brothers growing closeness. The shock of this recognition forces the narrator to confront his past with Sonny. The narrator encounters an old friend who has come to the school to bring the news. Conversation between the two proves to be guarded and hostile. When the conversation begins, for no reason, the narrator exclaims, "But now, abruptly, I hated him" (33). As the continued to talk, the narrator begins to hear him and feels guilty for never having listened to him before. As the friend goes on to tell about how he first told Sonny about the effects of heroine, you sense a hidden caring from the narrator. He seems to not care but timidly asks questions such as "so what's going to happen to him now" (34). In this situation we see the first signs of the narrator truly caring about his brother. Sonny's arrest sparks a letter from the narrator to Sonny. Sonny's answer, equating drug addiction with prison, and both with Harlem, shows his need to reach his brother. The two men have finally begun to communicate with one another. The letters continue until Sonny's return to New York when the narrator, who has started at last to worry about Sonny, about the life that Sonny lived inside, takes him home. The narrator acts and feels awkward, wanting only to hear that Sonny is safe and refusing to accept the fact that he might not be. Through this we realize that the two brothers finally have an understanding for each other. Although the understanding is limited, it grows immensely throughout the story.

In the flashbacks the narrator recalls events that bring together the past, present, and future. We learn of another pair of brothers, Sonny's father and uncle. The uncle, like Sonny, was a musician, but he was killed one night after being run over by some drunken white men. Parallels are drawn between both their father and uncle and Sonny. The narrator's mother makes this apparent when she tells him, "I ain't telling you all this to make you scared or bitter or to make you hate nobody. I'm telling you this because you got a brother. And the world ain't changed" (41). She tells her older son all this so he will look after his brother, but her death, occurring shortly after this conversation, only shows the immeasurable gulf between the two boys. After the narrator was married he forces Sonny to live with his wife's family because he believes it is what is best. Although Sonny, already on drugs, though unable to admit it, could not want anything less. Their failure to communicate is at its peak. When Sonny announces his ambition to play jazz, the narrator is appalled and completely unresponsive. The narrator then explains to Sonny how important it is for him to stay in school and graduate. When the narrator asks Sonny if he heard him Sonny shows evidence of their relationship being at an all time low when he replies, "I hear you. But you never hear anything I say" (45). The narrator, though he didn't know what to say to that, reminds Sonny of the piano at his in-laws, and Sonny gives in. Later we learn of Sonny's obsession with the piano. Sonny has no one to communicate with and the piano becomes his

only source of expression. Isabel finally confessed that, "it wasn't like living with a person at all, it was like living with sound" (47). We become aware that the narrator is truly becoming aware of his brothers feelings and beginning to understand what he is going through when he tells us, "They dimly sensed as I sensed, that Sonny was at the piano playing for his life" (51). After everyone finds out Sonny has not been in school, but has been at an apartment playing music, he enlists. When he returns as a man, the narrator is not willing to see the transformation Sonny has made. The brothers fight because, for to the narrator, Sonny's music seemed to be merely an excuse for the life he led. This allows us to understand the narrator stubbornness and unwillingness to forgive his brother. Although at this point in the story hope for the two becoming close seems slim, eventually they both evolve and become closer than they have ever been before.

Music allows the brothers to have a relationship based around understanding one another and being there for each other. The narrator's new realm of thinking begins when Sonny and he watch a street revival meeting. The narrator realizes that their music saves them, for it "seemed to soothe a poison out of them." (50). The narrator's recognition of the meaning of music and the power it has provokes conversation. Sonny tells his brother that the woman's voice reminded him of what heroin feels like. The narrator explains that music can be a positive alternative to drugs and we now understand Sonny's desperate commitment to the piano. We begin to see a change in the narrator and his willingness to understand, and listen to his brother. He now shows sympathy and realizes the profundity of Sonny's suffering and thinks of ways he can help. Sonny then invites his brother to listen to his music. This event makes their understanding for each other stronger than it has ever been. The leader of Sonny's group steps to the microphone and says, "These are Sonny's Blues." This part of the story gives the reader a feeling that the characters have truly gone through a change and they have done it together. Sonny's music stirs special memories in the each of the brother's lives. Music proved to ultimately be the thing that brought them close and gave each of them the brother that they had always wanted, but was never there.

"Sonny's Blues" is a story about two brothers whose relationship evolved through suffering and tragedy and allowed music to be a catalyst for change and ultimately bring the two closer than they had ever imagined. The story tells of two brothers who over time, come to understand each other. It began with the brothers not being in contact, to the end of the story where Sonny proclaims to the narrator for the first time, "You are my brother." Sonny learns to channel his suffering into music and when his brother finally understands that the two are closer than they ever have been.

Frequently anthologized, James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" tells the story of two brothers 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.

Sonny’s Blues Summary

"Sonny's Blues" opens as the narrator learns from a newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested for dealing heroin. The narrator is taking the subway to his high-school teaching job. At the end of the school day, the "insular and mocking" laughter of his students reminds him that as youths he and Sonny had been filled with rage and had known "two darknesses"—the one of their lives and the one of the movies that made them momentarily forget about their lives. Leaving the school, the narrator comes across an old friend of Sonny's in the school yard.

While Sonny's friend and the narrator talk about Sonny's arrest, they tell each other some of their fears. In front of a bar that blasts "black and bouncy'' music, the friend, who is not given a name, says that he "can't much help old Sonny no more.'' This angers the narrator because it reminds him that he himself had given up trying to help his brother because he had not known how; indeed, he had not even seen Sonny in a year. It disturbs the narrator to see his situation shared by someone who is not even related to Sonny. The friend mentions that he thought Sonny was too smart to get caught in a drug bust. In anger, the narrator criticizes the friend, sarcastically implying that the friend must have been smarter since he had not been arrested himself. The friend pauses and replies that he would have killed himself a long time ago if he were really smart, implying that he believes death is better than addiction. He then begins to explain to the older brother how he feels responsible for turning Sonny onto drugs, but the narrator breaks in and asks what will happen to Sonny next. The friend says that Sonny will be sent to a place where they will try and cure him and then he will be let loose to start his habit again. When... » Complete Sonny’s Blues Summary