Eliza Mata

Ms. Guzman

Period 1- AP Literature

October 21, 2019

The bonds between family members are one of the strongest connections that exist, yet

even these relationships can become strained or even break entirely. In James Baldwin’s short

story “Sonny’s Blues”, Baldwin portrays a young musician through the perspective of his

younger brother. The two struggle with death, the effect of drugs, poverty, and the tense

relationship with each other. Baldwin portrays the narrator’s complex relationship with Sonny

through the use of first person point of view, flashbacks, and metaphors.

Baldwin opens the story with the narrator reading important news in the paper. It is

revealed that Sonny was arrested for heroin use. Because Baldwin uses first person, the

narrator’s thoughts are detailed and displayed intimately. The narrator “couldn’t believe it” but

later confesses that “I hadn’t wanted to know. I had had suspicions, but didn’t name them, I kept

putting them away”, implying that internally, the narrator denies Sonny’s misfortune (Baldwin

19). The narrator hears about the incident through the newspaper rather than personally, a sign

that the two have drifted apart. The narrator expresses his feelings externally to one of Sony’s

friends, which comes off as angry at Sonny for his actions and pessimistic of his future. The

narrator feels “the dread [he] felt all afternoon”, worrying about Sonny, wanting to do something

to help him (Baldwin 20). Even though the narrator fears for Sonny’s future, he does not take

any action to initiate contact, nor to provide support during Sonny’s toughest times because of

the bad history he had with Sonny. The initial clash between the brothers occurs when the
narrator asks Sonny what he wants to do for his future. When Sonny responds with wanting to be

a Jazz musician, the narrator “simply couldn’t see why on earth he’d want to spend his time

hanging around nightclubs, clowning around on bandstands, while people pushed each other

around a dance floor. It seemed— beneath him”, yet he does not tell Sonny this (Baldwin

31).The narrator does not tell Sonny his feelings, but instead bottles them up and attempt to

change Sonny’s mind. Sonny makes it clear that this is his one and only goal in life and the

narrator views this stubborness as childness, so does not take Sonny’s passion seriously. Because

the narrator had hidden feelings against Sonny’s choices, the two harbor unaddressed anger

towards another. Baldwin does this to give reasoning for the narrator’s actions, revealing

exclusively to the audience the narrator’s true feelings.

Baldwin utilized changes in time such as flashbacks in order to convey the progression of

the narrator’s and Sonny’s relationship. In the introduction, the narrator is distant, even though

he is worried for him. The narrator does not contact Sonny until much later. Once the two finally

meet up to reconcile, so much time has passed that they do not know how to approach each

other. The time they had spent apart changed both of them, the narrator mentioning that Sonny

does not look like his “baby brother”. The narrator expresses that “ When I saw him many things

I thought I had forgotten came flooding back to me”, then Baldwin produces a major flashback

reflecting this idea. Baldwin opens the flashback with memories of their father, moving onto

memories of their mother. Baldwin does this to give crucial information about the brother’s

history. The mother tells the narrator about a horrific accident with his uncle, their father’s

brother, asking the narrator afterwards to promise “to hold on to your brother... and don’t let him

fall no matter what” (Baldwin 30). The narrator forgets his promise, up until this point, and the

flashback represents the narrator reminding himself of it. Near the end of the flashback, the
narrator recalls the biggest fight that the two had with one another. When the narrator found

Sonny after he came back from the navy, he attempts to make up with him, “he wouldn’t come

downstairs with me, and he treated these other people as though they were his family and I

weren’t. So I got mad and then he got mad, and then I told him that he might just as well be dead

than live the way he was living” (Baldwin 36). When the narrator leaves, he is emotional, but

believes Sonny was in the wrong. Once the flashback ends, the brothers are able to have a heart

to heart conversation. The purpose of the flashback is to allow the narrator to remember his past

mistakes and to move on from them. Only once he can move on from his past, can he move

forward.

Baldwin uses metaphors to colorfully convey the narrator’s emotions and beliefs.

Throughout the story, the narrator is depicted as fearful, mostly for Sonny’s sake. Baldwin uses

ice to symbolise fear in the narrator “ A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept

melting there slowly all day long, while sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins,

but it never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were

going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream” (Baldwin 17). Baldwin uses

expressive language so that the audience can sympathise with the narrator and understand his

emotions. Baldwin introduces this concept early so that when ice is mentioned again, the

audience can understand that the narrator is experiencing anxiety. This fear is what created the

conflict between him and Sonny, the narrator fearing for Sonny’s future. Baldwin uses light and

dark in the narrator’s inner dialogue to symbolize good and evil. When the narrator describes his

algebra class of boys, he thinks “All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their

lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded

them to that other darkness” (Baldwin 18). The narrator has a pessimistic view about the lives of
the young boys, connecting them to Sonny and his own tough life. Compared to the narrator,

Sonny is more optimistic about his life despite all of his trouble, and he is described with more

light metaphors. By the end of the story, Sony invites the narrator to watch his performance.

During the whole performance, the narrator describes in detail using metaphors, but near the end

he says “I saw my mother’s face again... I saw the moonlit road where my father’s brother died.

And it brought something back to me...I saw my little girl again, and felt Isabel’s tears again, and

I felt my own tears begin to rise” (Baldwin 48). By the end of Sonny’s performance, the narrator

begins to understand why Sonny is passionate about music. The narrator was able to experience

such intense emotions through Sonny’s performance, now realizing that there is a more to Jazz

than playing at clubs for the fun of it. There is hope that the two can become close once again,

with the narrator’s new perspective on music, and that the narrator can fulfill his promise. The

relationship between each other is restored, and can go beyond what it once was.

Baldwin utilizes various literary devices, such as first person point of view, flashbacks,

and metaphors to creatively convey the narrator’s and his brother’s relationship with one another.

The relationship changes throughout the story, at first being bitter, then later becoming mend.

The narrator was able to face his fears and try to understand his brother, despite it going sourly

the first time. The narrator and Sonny prove that family bonds are unbreakable, even through

harsh situations, when the family truly loves one another.