Jess Anderson
English X-8
Ms. Landon
18 October 2017
Short Story Paper
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a story about the Narrator’s younger brother Sonny’s struggles with drug addiction while growing up in Harlem. The story starts off with the narrator discovering that Sonny has been caught using drugs and imprisoned. After being released and returning to harlem Sonny begins to use the piano as a way to cope with his suffering. This causes a rift between the brothers because the Narrator believes that Sonny is throwing is future away by pursuing music as a career. Only once Sonny takes the Narrator to one of his bandstands does the Narrator actually understand how Sonny uses his music to deal with suffering. Baldwin uses symbolism throughout the story to convey the theme of suffering. …show more content…
One of the most prevalent symbols of suffering is the darkness that seems to loom in and around every alley and corner. “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway cars and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside”(29). Darkness is a symbol for all the suffering that people go through. Like darkness, suffering is something that is inescapable. “These streets hadn’t changed, though the housing projects jutted up out of them now like rocks in the middle of a boiling sea… But houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated the landscape”(37). As the narrator drives through his old neighborhood he sees that almost nothing has changed except for the housing projects which have sprouted up in the place of demolished buildings. The housing projects, which are described as rocks in a boiling sea, do little to keep people away from drug
English X-8
Ms. Landon
18 October 2017
Short Story Paper
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a story about the Narrator’s younger brother Sonny’s struggles with drug addiction while growing up in Harlem. The story starts off with the narrator discovering that Sonny has been caught using drugs and imprisoned. After being released and returning to harlem Sonny begins to use the piano as a way to cope with his suffering. This causes a rift between the brothers because the Narrator believes that Sonny is throwing is future away by pursuing music as a career. Only once Sonny takes the Narrator to one of his bandstands does the Narrator actually understand how Sonny uses his music to deal with suffering. Baldwin uses symbolism throughout the story to convey the theme of suffering. …show more content…
One of the most prevalent symbols of suffering is the darkness that seems to loom in and around every alley and corner. “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway cars and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside”(29). Darkness is a symbol for all the suffering that people go through. Like darkness, suffering is something that is inescapable. “These streets hadn’t changed, though the housing projects jutted up out of them now like rocks in the middle of a boiling sea… But houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated the landscape”(37). As the narrator drives through his old neighborhood he sees that almost nothing has changed except for the housing projects which have sprouted up in the place of demolished buildings. The housing projects, which are described as rocks in a boiling sea, do little to keep people away from drug