In “Sonny’s Blues”, by James Baldwin, Sonny sets himself in a problematic situation with drug addiction and a loss of communication with his brother. Sonny’s hometown in Harlem causes him to set himself in a dangerous atmosphere, making it impossible to escape from which in Sonny’s situation, is his addiction towards drugs. Not only does Sonny’s habit with drug use causes him a downfall in his life, but it also makes him lose a connection with his brother. Sonny finds a solution to communicate his suffering through music which his brother finally realizes what he was struggling with the whole time. Sonny deals with an internal struggle of a drug addiction and communication within his music is the only way of expressing his backstory to others.
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Baldwin indicates the narrator’s anxious feeling when discussing the topic of heroin , “All this was carrying me some place I didn’t want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it felt”. (98). The narrator refuses to hear what one of Sonny’s friends is telling him when he described heroin as a great feeling. The narrator dislikes the person because he thinks that Sonny’s friend was the one who got Sonny into doing drugs. The narrator seems to be uncomfortable with the topic, but overall he feels anger. In Sandy Norton’s Addiction and Bearing Reality in Sonny’s Blues, she describes the narrator’s unbearable pain with heroin, “Heroin keeps things from fragmenting in the face of unbearable pain, as does art”. (7). This quote relates more towards Sonny’s current addiction to drug use when he wanted to escape from Harlem but could not. Not only does Sonny relates to this, but also his brother who was once a drug user himself. He might have a different perspective as an adult, but he did experience drug usage like his younger brother, which is something they have in common so he knows what it feels like regardless if he is trying to avoid the topic. Eventually, the narrator changes his mind during the conversation when he begins to think that even though the person he is talking to is doing drugs, he also has a backstory of why he started in the first
Baldwin indicates the narrator’s anxious feeling when discussing the topic of heroin , “All this was carrying me some place I didn’t want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it felt”. (98). The narrator refuses to hear what one of Sonny’s friends is telling him when he described heroin as a great feeling. The narrator dislikes the person because he thinks that Sonny’s friend was the one who got Sonny into doing drugs. The narrator seems to be uncomfortable with the topic, but overall he feels anger. In Sandy Norton’s Addiction and Bearing Reality in Sonny’s Blues, she describes the narrator’s unbearable pain with heroin, “Heroin keeps things from fragmenting in the face of unbearable pain, as does art”. (7). This quote relates more towards Sonny’s current addiction to drug use when he wanted to escape from Harlem but could not. Not only does Sonny relates to this, but also his brother who was once a drug user himself. He might have a different perspective as an adult, but he did experience drug usage like his younger brother, which is something they have in common so he knows what it feels like regardless if he is trying to avoid the topic. Eventually, the narrator changes his mind during the conversation when he begins to think that even though the person he is talking to is doing drugs, he also has a backstory of why he started in the first