Sonny's Addiction

The short story is narrated by Sonny’s older brother. He is a school a responsible school teacher, with a family of his own. The story begins by the brother, whose name is unidentified in the story, finding out that his young brother Sonny got arrested for possession and selling drugs, specifically heroin. He is the type of older brother that is protective yet he is angry for what his brother has

In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin a schoolteacher from the city of Harlem struggles with life and figuring out how to helped his troubled brother. All though named Sonny’s Blues the main character is actually Sonny’s brother who is the narrator and goes through his life and how he reacts to the many problems his younger brother has come into. The brothers grew up in the poverty stricken city of Harlem where the brothers had to avoid drugs and violence constantly. Growing up, Sonny struggled to stay out of trouble and ended up making some bad decisions throughout his life and ends up landing him in jail and addicted to heroin. The un-named brother of Sonny who is the narrator of the story begins to

The narrator experienced a lot of problems throughout his life but managed to emerge victoriously from most of them. Even with this, he needs to support Sonny because this was his mother's dying wish. "The death of the narrator's daughter, Sonny's failure to fit in with his own family, a stint in the navy all serve to alienate the brothers, even after their mother made the narrator promise to keep an eye on young Sonny" (Smith 22). The fact that they were born in a harsh environment, society's views in regard to their racial background, and the fact that they experienced a lot of hardships during their lives all had a severe effect on the personalities of each of the brothers.

The narrator goes to a club to watch Sonny and his band play. He begins to understand how deeply his brother feels and thinks, “I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument with the breath of life, his own.”(Baldwin 102) The music gives Sonny a chance to release his hopelessness and depression. Even though the narrator believes Sonny could have done more with his life if he had turned to classical music, he understands that Sonny is being true to who he really is. The anonymous brother, however, has not found

What has not yet realized is that heroin is in fact the thing controlling him. What his brother has tried to obstruct him from is how the more dependent one gets, the more the drug and its providers takes control of their users. Ultimately, the price of this brief feeling of control is an ocean of even more pain and suffering. Fortunately, Sonny found yet another way to cope with his pain. Sonny is once again able to set aside his tortured mind and find happiness and peace through the keys of his piano instead of destroying his life with heroin. The narrator is finally able to witness his brother in true bliss and in addition, discovering the power of Sonny’s blues: “and it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw [Isabel] again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise” (Baldwin 140). Music will always be there to help with his problems like expressed by Gary Bartz: “Music is my religion. Music is the only thing that has never failed me People let you down, music won't” (Bartz 2). Although the narrator tried to help his brother become the same respectable man that he has built himself up to be, he can finally accept that, Sonny is unique in his own way, finding happiness in the music he plays. Overall, all the narrator wished upon his brother was happiness. Similar to what Freud predicted, Sonny found solace in escaping his everyday hardship with, not death, but music, which gave him the same lifting feeling of

The story opens with a crisis in their relationship. The narrator reads in the newspaper that Sonny was taken into custody in a drug raid. He learns that Sonny is addicted to heroin and that he will be sent to a treatment facility to be “cured.” Unable to believe that his gentle and quiet brother could have so abused himself, the narrator cannot reopen communication with Sonny until a second crisis occurs, the death of his daughter from polio. When Sonny is released, the narrator brings him to live with his family.

The narrator always wanted the best for his younger brother Sonny. Sonny from the beginning of the story has a hard history of using drugs, ending up in jail, and not finishing school. Once both of their parents had passed, the

As well as in the short story Sonny’s Blues, the main character, Sonny, is being criticized by his brother. Since the very beginning, their mother told the oldest one, ‘’ you got to hold on to your brother ’’ and that’s what he wanted to do, but Sonny took a different path than he did. Sonny was the kind of guy that was heroin-addicted and a jazz musician, but his older brother didn’t see all these sides of him. We discover all these sides by the use of flashback of the author throughout the major parts of the story. The author didn’t want us to see Sonny like his older brother was seeing him, he wanted us to see him as a poor, un-accepted guy that needed to be listened by his peers. The brother didn’t accept the journey that Sonny had taken, but if he would of saw the actual Sonny, and stop hiding in the darkness, he would of accepted him faster and understand that Sonny only wanted to show that he could do good things not only drugs. In the middle of the story, there is a flashback were we learn that actually Sonny is more experienced about life than his older brother, because Sonny was in drugs and was really affected by Harlem( the city they stayed in when they were younger). The brother had a pretty easy life; he became a teacher and had a little family. This demonstrates that we need support from our peers, to be able to continue without taking bad choices.

While the narrator has created a new life for himself, his younger brother, Sonny, had recently been in jail for

The relationship between siblings can be very strained. Maybe the siblings fight all of the time, or they just don’t care what the other(s) do. In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the relationship between Sonny and his brother was very distant for a few months after Sonny was arrested, but they became closer once he was released. The brothers do care about each other very dearly and want the best for each other. Baldwin’s short story shows a sibling relationship in which the narrator wants to be there to protect Sonny.° The narrator shows this quality when he sees his mother for the last time, after his mother’s funeral, and after Sonny’s struggle with addiction.*

"Sonny's Blues," by James Baldwin, explores the strained relationship that two brothers the unnamed narrator and Sonny have and how the narrator slowly begins to recognize Sonny's relationship with music. While the narrator is initially baffled by Sonny's dream to become a musician, towards the end of the short story, he recognizes that Sonny depends on music and that it is a driving force in his life, possibly one of the only things that keep him alive.

“Sonny’s Blues,”by James Baldwin, is about the brother’s love and understanding others. The narrator reads in the newspaper about this younger brother, Sonny’s arrest for using heroin. Sonny wants to be a jazz pianist, however, the narrator argues that it’s a waste of his time. One day Sonny moves into the narrator’s apartment and causes narrator’s struggle whether to trust Sonny because now, Sonny’s room is right there in-front him. The narrator and Sonny argue again in the apartment about Sonny’s drug use and narrator’s inability to understand Sonny as a musician. Despite of all that, Sonny invites the narrator to come hear him play. Narrator listens

In many cases, the younger brother feels inferior to the older brother. The older brother is always authoritarian and tells the younger brother what to do because he is trying to be protective and to provide guidance. In the story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, the younger brother, Sonny, and the older brother who is the narrator of the story have a relationship where the older brother wants what is best for the younger brother. The narrator wants his younger brother, Sonny, to stay in school and get a safe job, but Sonny wants to take the risk and do something fun that he loves, which is playing the piano. As the story progresses, various events help transform the older brother until he finally realizes how important music is to his brother and to him because music is what unites them.

In James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues”, two emotionally damaged brothers learn that communication is essential in strengthening their relationship. The logical narrator is Sonny’s older brother by seven years, who attempts to provide for the dreamer and fails. Sonny needs his music to escape the horror of his childhood, and the narrator feels guilty for not looking after him better. Trying to make up for his mistakes, the narrator makes an effort to talk to Sonny about the boy’s future in music, which he does not understand the necessity of, leading to frustration on both parts, fighting, and years of silence. Consumed by his inner loneliness, Sonny copes with Heroin and gets caught, while the narrator again feels responsible. After

In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” the author James Baldwin tells the story of two brothers reconnecting after years of soul searching. The story begins in media res where the narrator finds out his brother has been incarcerated due to a heroin addiction. The rising action begins when the narrator reads about Sonny in the paper. In which he finds out how difficult Sonny’s dug addicted life will be, through one of Sonny’s old friends. In time the narrator finally writes to Sonny after losing his young daughter Gracie, from this point on the two brothers stay in constant communication and reunite after Sonny’s release.