Exerts for Sonny's Blues

"Sonny's Blues", by James Baldwin, is a story about the past and present lives of two brothers. The story is told in first person point-of-view by Sonny 's brother, whose name is never mentioned. The narrator begins with the event of his brother getting caught in a raid for using heroin. The significance of this event triggers many memories and emotions for the narrator and his brother. The narrator tells many stories from, the place …

…help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did."( ) This discovery reiterates Creole's earlier assessment of the blues: "There isn't any other tale to tell, its the only light we've got in all the darkness." Here the blues provides for the player and listener a temporary flight away from the despair of their daily condition. The blues that they are playing touches the heart without words.