Sonny Blues Literary Analysis

Sonny Blues provides awareness not only into Sonny and their life together but also into their territory. Although the story adduces Sonny in its title, it is through the storyteller eyes that Sonny and Harlem are revealed. Compared to most of the men in his community, the storyteller has succeeded: he has a wife, two children, and a good job as a teacher. However, he is constantly aware of Harlem’s black, more dangerous side. He notes the open drug dealing that happens in the playgrounds near the housing projects, the disappearance of old homes, and, of course, his brother’s ongoing battle with the world. Far from worrying solely about his family’s difficulties, he frames Sonny’s fight within a larger context, situating him within the poverty, crime, and drug abuse that plague the entire community. Sonny Blues is a story that …show more content…
"Safe, hell! Ain't no place safe for kids, nor nobody." "Sonny's Blues" (Baldwin, 1957)
As the story continues, the storyteller addressed sonny being finally freed after seven years of incarceration and the streets of their childhood. The storyteller’s mind is full of anxiety. He doesn’t know if Sonny can ever change his perspective of a future. Eventually, the storyteller’s new life in marriage separated the two brothers and brought them together again upon their mother’s death whose will was for the storyteller to take care of his brother. Thus, when the mother died, the storyteller assumes the responsibility of taking care of Sonny but one of his regrets would be not listening enough to Sonny who is all too passionate with music the way he believes “one must have much suffering to be able to sing beautifully” and thus, any human being must listen more attentively to music. In the end, the storyteller realized that “All I know about music is that not too many people ever really hear