Week 7-Sonny's Blues

Sonny’s Blues Essay

              In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin, Baldwin portrays Sonny as an empathetic character through indirect presentation of Sonny’s dynamic characterization. Baldwin implies Sonny’s depiction of being the sympathetic focal character through a character arc of Sonny’s brother’s narrative.

              Baldwin interprets Sonny as a character that feels misunderstood. As Sonny tries to tell his dreams and ambitions of becoming a musician, his brother expresses disapproval. Sonny deems a lack of emotional support from his brother for his goals, creating an atmosphere of Sonny feeling isolated in his introspection of his aspirations as Sonny states towards his brother “you never hear anything I say.” The career choice draws a line of disconnection between the brothers. Sonny’s detachment created by his brother not approving of his career choice, forms an emotional impact on Sonny’s character.

              Sonny is depicted as a character struggling to survive the dark reality of the projects and his addiction. Sonny states "No, there's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of it, and to make it seem-well, like you. Like you did something, all right, and now you're suffering for it…You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there's not really a living ass to talk to, and there's nothing shaking, and there's no way of getting it out- that storm inside. You can't talk it and you can’t make love with it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody’s listening. So you've got to listen. You got to find a way to listen…Sometimes you'll do anything to play, even cut your mother’s throat. Or your brother's. Or your own." Sonny views the harsh actuality of the streets and he struggles to live; he to tries to overcome the projects and its ways but later gives up the fight and gives into a heroin addiction to cope with dark realities. Sonny’s strain of adversity is a foundation of Sonny’s perceptive personality and causes empathetic sympathies.

              Sonny’s is portrayed as passionate. “Sonny played…Then he began to make it his… Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his: that long line, of which we knew only Mama and Daddy. And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death, it can live forever. I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died”.  Sonny plays his pains on the piano. Every struggle and experience Sonny has been through leaked and screamed into melodic piano notes. Sonny’s music, Sonny’s Blues spoke of his story, his afflictions, his blues. Sonny’s “blues”  became Sonny’s Blues.