James Baldwin Sonny's Blues Analysis

Music, culture, and drugs have interrelated together in various levels of harmony and conflict throughout contemporary music, affecting patrons and creators alike. James Baldwin’s sonny’s blues is an illustration of this triangle of traditional relations that has plagued three generations of American culture. The unfolding of the story dates back to 1950's a time in which the African American community swung into a downward spiral. Sonny’s, the protagonist of the story discovers music as his aim of fleeing African American society brutal oppression in the 1950’s. However, sonny’s brother asserts, “but there’s no need…is there? In killing yourself?” (Baldwin 59) making reference to sonny’s drug use during his musical escapes in Greenwich Village …show more content…
Sometimes you have to have that feeling.”(Baldwin 58). First, this aids in demonstrating the conflict of the time the culture Americans built around discrimination and sidelining the inner African- American city culture. Sonny was under the influence of heroin so as to feel in control of the immediate occurrences because he was not in control whatsoever. His ability to get out of the deprived inner-city life came to an end at the time due to American culture. When people are not entitled to control their perceived destiny, they have to engage in something that gives them that feeling of control whether induced through narcotics or …show more content…
Sonny demonstrates this very vividly displaying the role of drugs as the catalyst of this feeling. Accordingly, when he was mostly out of the world, he felt that he was in it and that he had to play or did not have to either. Sonny was performing music and using heroin to escape his oppressive life caused by the society. His brother escaped the oppression by joining the army and acquired an education to teach in his local neighborhood of