Sonny's Blues

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with no ties to family and job security. Sonny's brother sees Sonny trying to become a jazz musician, he watches and listens as Sonny goes through many difficulties in life. He doesn't want Sonny to be a jazz musician, because there is no future in this. At the end of the story, Sonny's brother attends the nightclub to watch and listen to his brother perform. During this visit, he learns and listens to understand how Sonny uses his music to survive; the music gives meaning to his life.
The author used the title of the story Sonny's Blues, to give the readers the hint about the theme of the story. The noun "blues" is defined as a mood of unhappiness and depression. This theme is present throughout the story. "Blues" is a style of music that expresses a sad mood. It is synonymous with low spirits and depressed emotions. The "blues," both as a state of being and as music, is basic to the structure of the story, and both the narrator and his brother Sonny have had their share of ...

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not crazy. He says Sonny had always been a good boy, he hadn't ever turned hard or evil or disrespectful, and the way kids can, so quick" (Baldwin 85). He compares Sonny to his students: dreamy, disenchanted, and obedient, but struggling against the hopelessness their impoverished lives promise.
Living in a Harlem housing project, Sonny's brother consciously protects himself from the dangers that surround him. You'll notice that the narrator and Sonny have grown up in a predominately black and poor neighborhood of Harlem, the sons of a working-class, embittered father whose pride and hopefulness have been worn down by his own brother's violent death at the hands of rural Southern whites. ...

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