What Is The True Meaning Of The Short Story Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

Fictional writing is usually done just to entertain readers. Authors create stories with a little bit of point of view, while others introduce more complex plots and storylines which is incredible. When it comes to author James Baldwin’s short story Sonny’s Blues, there is more deep meaning given to the storyline and the characters. Sonny’s Blues probably has been analyzed by professors, students, and by many different people throughout time because the story has many elements. An amazing but simple story about a man and his brother that informs and entertains us about their family, drug addiction, socio economic struggles in the Black community, and the language of Jazz music.
Sonny’s Blues is a story about an aspiring musician’s life as it

Later, the narrator associates the bad choices Sonny made regarding drugs with jazz, ¨… his music seemed merely to be an excuse for the life he led¨. Though Sonny’s brother does not openly blame Jazz for Sonny’s problems, Sonny is aware of how his brother feels about it; he makes this clear in a letter he sent to his brother from prison, “I don’t want you to think it had anything to do with me being a musician”. Once the narrator takes the time to actually listen to Sonny he gains a better understanding of how Sonny sees jazz music versus how he originally views it. When Sonny’s brother watches him play the piano in the club, he realizes that Jazz music wasn’t Sonny’s downfall; it was his escape from suffering. Sonny’s Blues has been analyzed by many different people in the past because the story is a complex one that touches on many different things. While reading the story readers will notice that the author makes use of the word “fall” in many places in the piece. Baldwin describes literal falls, “she heard Grace fall down¨, and figurative falls, ¨don’t let him fall¨ throughout the piece. There's also a lot of biblical references, the narrator seems

Just as hip-hop music gave impoverished youths an outlet in the 1980’s, jazz music did the same for youths in the 1950’s. That is another reason jazz was used in Baldwin’s short story, to creatively show readers what life was like in the Black community during those times. Going all the way back to slavery, Black people were made to live together as family even when they didn’t actually know each other. That mentality has continued on naturally throughout the culture which is why it is not uncommon to hear African-Americans refer to each other as “brother” or “sister”. It is a common struggle and history that bonds people that may never normally socialize with each other. There were two instances in Sonny’s Blues when the narrator mentions Sonny’s relationship to other non-blood relatives. The first time it is with contempt, “he treated these other people as though they were his family and I weren’t”. The people he was referring to were most likely drug addicts and at that point in time Sonny’s brother was not really trying to see what was going on in Sonny’s life. Another time he makes this reference it is when he is watching Sonny perform with his band and he says, “and Sonny was part of the family again”. This time when the narrator sees Sonny as part of a family, he sees it all in a