James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues is a tale of suffering. It is the story of two brothers from Harlem who cope with their pain and suffering in different ways. Sonny is shown as a troubled youth who grows into a troubled man. Harlem is taken over by drugs and while Sonny aspires to be a musician, the environment threatens to destroy him. To suppress his pain, he has been using heroin and is arrested for it. After being released, he is forced to deal with them. Since he is introverted, he uses the blues to accomplish this. So, the reader can see that the character of Sonny changes by developing the ability to deal with his pain and problems through music instead of drugs. Jay-Z wrote a song in which he deals with a breakup, but is not allowed to show emotions only through his music. There is a connection between music and pain in Sonny’s Blues and Jay-Z’s Song Cry.
The narrator, Sonny's brother, has pain too, but he has learned to deal with it by interactions with others and his family. Throughout the story, he is distant from Sonny, but does not want to be. He loves his brother but does not understand him. They are seeing the world from two different perspectives just like they saw it through two different windows in the cab. The narrator …show more content…
In his article, To the Deep Water, Robert P. McParland states, “The blues live in Baldwin’s story as a respite from disaster. They suggest a space of suspension between the trouble of life and that breakthrough to wholeness that is temporary.” Sonny was surrounded by drugs and always felt alone and cut off from others. His ability to play Jazz helped him deal with his troubles. It was his means of communication, “Sometimes you’ll do anything to play, even cut your mother’s throat” (Baldwin 21). The narrator did not have this mean of escaping from his problems because he did not understand what his brother found in
The narrator, Sonny's brother, has pain too, but he has learned to deal with it by interactions with others and his family. Throughout the story, he is distant from Sonny, but does not want to be. He loves his brother but does not understand him. They are seeing the world from two different perspectives just like they saw it through two different windows in the cab. The narrator …show more content…
In his article, To the Deep Water, Robert P. McParland states, “The blues live in Baldwin’s story as a respite from disaster. They suggest a space of suspension between the trouble of life and that breakthrough to wholeness that is temporary.” Sonny was surrounded by drugs and always felt alone and cut off from others. His ability to play Jazz helped him deal with his troubles. It was his means of communication, “Sometimes you’ll do anything to play, even cut your mother’s throat” (Baldwin 21). The narrator did not have this mean of escaping from his problems because he did not understand what his brother found in