Sonny's Blues Symbolism

In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the reader meets Sonny, a recovering addict, and his older brother, a high school teacher. Although these two brothers have completely different lives and personalities, the author’s use of symbolism brings them more tightly together like a real family. Baldwin uses symbols such as ice, lightness and darkness, and jazz music to add more depth and meaning to “Sonny’s Blues.”

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 story, Sonny’s Blues, describes the lives of two brothers growing up in Harlem in the early 1960’s. Sonny and his brother are different in the way the go about life in general. They were both raised in the same household, yet they grew up to be totally different people. As the story progresses we see that both brothers have troubles in their lives and we get to see how each thinks and acts when facing such ordeals. While the brothers differ in the way they internalize and cope with their problems, they both show selfish characteristics, but ultimately feel remorseful for not being in each others’ lives.

The writer was a poor boy growing up. He was also a Negro, so things were bad for him and his family in white America. He probably felt sad every day of his childhood so he turned to books for entertainment and maybe escape. When he started reading, he found that he liked it and wanted to create stories for other people to enjoy, but he was a poor Negro boy who could not expect help from the whites, so he taught himself to write. That is similar to Sonny, who taught himself to play the piano.

In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" the symbolic motif of light and darkness illustrates the painful nature of reality the two characters face as well as the power gained through it. The darkness represents the actuality of life on the streets of the community of Harlem, where there is little escape from the reality of drugs and crime. The persistent nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a means of escaping the darkness of their lives. The main character, Sonny, a struggling jazz musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing the creativity and artistic ability that lies within him. While using music as a way of creating a sort of structure in his life, Sonny attempts to step into the light, a life

This is symbolized by “the very cup of trembling,” a scotch and milk he sent to Sonny that is an allusion to the Bible; when God acknowledges that the Israelites have suffered for Him and he promises an end to their suffering. Maybe that means that this breakthrough of Sonny’s will bring a sense of fulfillment into his life and release him of his addiction to heroin.

“Sonny’s Blues” introduces two brothers who have differing mindsets about how to best cope with suffering. The narrator is Sonny’s responsible, unnamed older brother, who follows a very ordered path, using military service, marriage and teaching math to gain stability and escape the downward pull of Harlem. In contrast, younger brother Sonny lives his life like his music hero plays his jazz: improvising. Sonny experiments with drugs, skips school and eventually drops out, all the while feeding his obsession with piano. Sonny’s older brother sees no legitimacy in Sonny’s art and aspirations to become a musician. He disparagingly deems it “to be merely an excuse for the life he led”. The brothers are unable to set their differences aside, and are only reconnected in a time of immense grief, as the brother’s daughter, Grace, dies.

Everyone is born in different times with different opportunities. Some of us have to struggle to make ends meet and others are born with money at their feet already. “Sonny’s Blues” opens up in Harlem with the narrator on a bus reading a newspaper learning that his brother, Sonny, has been arrested for selling heroin. Sonny’s brother takes him in after he is released from jail. However, his brother is scared if he lets him back into his home he will fall into his old ways. Sonny’s true passion in life is to become a Jazz musician but his family doesn’t believe in what he wants to do. Sonny want’s his brother to go with him to a jazz club to see how he actually is and not just seeing him as a dope selling drug addict. At the end of Sonny’s set, he realizes that Jazz has helped Sonny to stay free and express himself. Through Marxist criticism Baldwin highlights the power struggle of the main characters and the world in which they live.

In “Sonny’s Blues” Baldwin creates a scene very similar to a story in the bible, The Cup of Trembling. At this point of the story the narrator has finally gone to see his brother play on the piano for the first time. The narrator had no idea what to expect from his younger brother. Towards the end of the story the narrator watches the barmaid place a cup of scotch and milk above the piano where Sonny played, which “glowed and shook above my brother’s head like the very cup of trembling.”(“A Symbol in the Story "Sonny's Blues"? - Homework Help - ENotes.com." Enotes.com). This is when Sonny’s brother finally understand that

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.

something for Sonny it was because his mother had wanted him to, not because he

Same World Different People “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is about how one brother disagrees with his younger brother’s dream of becoming a jazz musician, while heroin is drowning the streets of Harlem. Sonny is abusing heroin until one day he is caught and put in jail from which he then changes his life by getting to meet his older brother when he is released. In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” he exemplifies characterization, setting, and conflict throughout his story as Sonny goes from being a failure to becoming successful. Baldwin uses characterization to show when Sonny began heroin and what he wants to do in his future, as the narrator in the story says in his mind about Sonny “I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn’t have been much older than these boys were now” (Baldwin 27).

Sonny’s Blues is a novella with Sonny and his brother a teacher as main characters; Sonny engaged in drug use and peddling an act that landed him prison where his brother visited him and eventually on release he lived with him. Sonny’s parents died at different times during the racial segregation epoch in America, they were African-Americans who suffered victimization. Before her mother’s death, she had instructed Sonny’s senior brother - a teacher- to take care of him because the surrounding world was dark symbolic for unfriendly. The theme of brotherly love begins when their mother requests them

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”,this quote underline the epiphany that the narrator of Sonny’s Blue learned about how sibling relationships can help heal. In Sonny’s Blue a short story by James Baldwin,Baldwin use symbolism, point of view,setting help emphasize how humanity can rise above temptation through the help of family and doing the things you love. The symbolism in Sonny’s blue.

Any person who crosses the path of another no matter how small the encounter, ultimately affects that person's life forever. A theme like this is seen in the short story Sonny’s blues by james Baldwin, a story of two brothers who can not seem to see eye to eye through their troubled lives. One of the character’s Isabel, though not the main character plays a huge role in the story. She is characterized as an open and giving individual that serves almost as a bridge between both main characters the Narrator and Sonny. The connection she shares with both characters puts an emphasis on her importance to the story. Isabel is not only a character that enhances the story but without her would change the outcome completely.