Sonny's blues

“Perhaps I was listening to them because I was thinking about my brother and in them I heard my brother. And myself” (p.33) Throughout the entire story, we don’t see an ounce of excitement or fulfillment in James life. He’s a high school algebra teacher and the head of a typical family with several children, which is still recuperating from the death of a daughter. His life is tiresome, in the story the …

…all the pieces come together. For one, through the music all the pain that they had felt like the death of Grace and Sonny's addiction, came out. For once the narrator really gets into Sonny's world and in return Sonny's brother comes to an understanding. I think James Baldwin picked the title Sonny’s Blues not because of Sonny’s love of music, but for the pain (blues) Sonny suffered in his life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**