Sonny's Blues

In “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin explores the lingering psychological effects of racism on Black individuals through the relationship between two brothers, the unnamed narrator and his younger brother Sonny. Baldwin, who lived from 1924 to 1987, was one of the most prominent and esteemed American authors of his time. His varied literary output explored American society, particularly the experiences of Black individuals. Some of Baldwin’s most famous works were personal essays, such as 1955’s “Notes of a Native Son,” which drew upon his experience as a gay Black man to analyze the centrality of racism in Jim Crow America.

The two central characters of “Sonny’s Blues”—the narrator and Sonny—are both Black men who grew up in Harlem in the 1920s and ’30s. As children, they are born into a life of poverty and strife wrought by systemic racism. The narrator never directly refers to racism but uses the motif of “darkness” to symbolize the racism and poverty that he and his community endure. At the start of the story, the narrator observes his Harlem classroom of young boys and contemplates “the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them” (18). Later, the narrator recounts a childhood memory of seeing this darkness creep up on the faces of adults. He then clarifies where exactly this darkness originates: “[The darkness is] what they’ve come from. It’s what they endure” (27). In the narrator’s view, racism is a psychological darkness whose damaging effects wear down all Black individuals living under it.

The narrator suggests that racist trauma is inevitable for Black Americans. In discussing the New York housing projects that many Black people, including the narrator and his brother, grew up in, the narrator uses the metaphor of a trap: “Some escaped the trap, most didn’t. Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg and leave it in the trap” (24). The narrator sees himself and Sonny as two examples of individuals who escaped the trap, due to the narrator’s upwardly mobile career as “a school teacher” and Sonny’s leaving Harlem to live elsewhere in New York City (24). Despite this escape, the narrator suggests that he and Sonny were permanently wounded by the struggles they endured growing up in abject poverty.

Much of the rest of the story explores the brothers’ differing responses to their traumatic upbringings. The narrator seeks to escape the trap of his childhood by committing himself to work and living an orderly life. He first joins the army and marries Isabel, and later becomes a teacher. In contrast, Sonny seeks the fulfillment of his passions more than security, regardless of how unrealistic these dreams are. As a teenager, Sonny develops an intense obsession with jazz music, practicing daily for hours, much to the chagrin of Isabel and her family, with whom Sonny lives. Sonny is depicted as being driven by an intense, emotional need to express himself creatively: “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” (35). While the narrator seeks escape from poverty and strife through stability, Sonny seeks solace in music.

Baldwin explores how their divergent paths in life complicate their relationship. As children, the narrator and Sonny have a close and intimate bond; the narrator reflects, “when [Sonny] started to walk, he walked from our mother straight to me” (23). As they grow older, the narrator feels distance from his younger brother as he recognizes Sonny’s difference and agency. After Mama’s funeral, the narrator is shocked to realize Sonny has become an adult with views and struggles all his own, recognizing for the first time “some worry all his own” in Sonny’s eyes (33). The narrator becomes increasingly alienated from Sonny as Sonny informs him of his plans to pursue a career as a jazz musician, which the narrator considers an unseemly career only suited for “good-time people” (31). Sonny, meanwhile, grows frustrated with his brother’s concerns and demands, which he perceives as overprotective and dismissive of Sonny’s ability to care for himself. The conflict between the brothers only exacerbates over time, as Sonny spends more time with his fellow jazz musicians and falls deeper into drug addiction. By the time of the story’s start, when the narrator learns of Sonny’s arrest in the newspaper, the two brothers are estranged and have ceased talking.

Though racism does not directly cause the dissolution of the brothers’ relationship, Baldwin suggests that growing up amid darkness caused immense psychological pain for both men, causing them to drift apart as they sought to deal with their suffering. However, the story ends with a more hopeful tone, as the brothers tentatively reconcile with each other. After Sonny is released from prison, he comes to live with the narrator. This reunion causes the narrator “to wonder about Sonny, about the life that Sonny lived inside” (23). The narrator realizes that he must learn to listen to Sonny and empathize with his pain rather than criticize his passions or his drug use. The story ends with Sonny inviting the narrator to a performance at a club in Greenwich Village. As the narrator listens to Sonny’s piano playing, he hears all the pain Sonny has endured, as well as the pain of himself, his mother, and his father. Despite the sense of suffering that animates Sonny’s music, the narrator also hears hope and freedom within it, and sees how music provides Sonny an escape from the painful “darkness.” The story closes with the narrator ordering Sonny a Scotch, signifying his growing approval and admiration for Sonny and his career as a jazz musician.