According to Tracy, (2005), Sonny’s Blues’ is a story featuring two brothers which are good and evil. The story begins with the narrator that happens to be reading a newspaper where Sonny was arrested due to drug use. After the arrest, the narrator did not associate with Sonny for a long time until he lost his daughter to polio. This served as a wakeup call to reach out to his brother in prison. After Sonny’s release from prison, he was taken in by his brother, and it was then that they understood each other through his music at the club (Gale, 2015). The invitation to watch his performance with the piano, made him change his mind. The narrator gives them two shades of light and dark. James Baldwin narrates about his dark brother as they struggled in their childhood at Harlem. The story is more or less symbolic of the struggles that black men and women go through in their daily lives. Although the two brothers lived in the slums, the narrator seems to have experienced a different situation similar to the larger society. This is a life he acquired as a school teacher who was relatively good while Sonny turned into drugs. The narrative can be related to the story of Cain and Abel in the bible. The narrator uses “light” and “dark” to describe the “good” and “bad” (Baldwin, 1970)
Darkness
Reid, (2000) says darkness in the story describes the emotions experienced by Sonny while on drugs, playing the piano or as he reflects on his life. As the narrator speaks about his life, he seems like someone who has been taken from a deep hole and suddenly feels the rays of the sun above his head. The entire story revolves around their feelings and emotions and how they struggled. For instance, Sonny’s emotions are awakened by the sound of music that makes him despair. Darkness in the story extensively symbolises the challenges faced by African American community. For instance, once the narrator talks about his students he says “all they really knew were two darknesses, that of their lives which was now closing in on them and the darkness of the movies”
according to these assertions, most of them were faced with challenges of limited opportunities when while at adulthood (Baldwin, 1970).
The students have already started using substances just as sonny as the narrator says, “the drugs will do more for them that algebra could” (Tracy, 2015) The darkness relating to the movies impacted on them much later especially since, they prefer watching TV screens than Windows. Entertainment, in this case, has taken much of their time more than attention to their own lives. Towards the end of the story, the narrator sends his brother a drink believing that it resembles the “Cup of trembling.” This term is borrowed from the bible hence it signifies their relationship. (Reid, 2000)
The narrator and his brother sonny shared memories of their childhood that to them was full of darkness. The memory is represented by the words, “the vivid, killing streets of our childhood” where the streets were “darken with dark people.”According to the speaker hasn't much changed from those days.“...boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came into the streets for light and air and found themselves enriched by disaster.”
(Baldwin, 1970) According to the story the two brothers have travelled the world but in the end, they went back to home. The narrator did not experience darkness while growing up. Instead, he managed to get a respectable profession, has started a family yet, he noticed all children go through the same challenges.
Although he seems to have acquired a unique life, the narrator realized that his childhood wasn't any better from the rest of the people. The story is based on darkness within their lives and outside. The “old folks” have seen darkness from where they have come from and their experience. Old Folks needn’t talk much about them to children to avoid sending threats to them on what they expect. The narrator terms this as the certainty of “what’s going to happen.” The old folks are said to avoid addressing the issue of darkness since there is little they can do about it (Reid, 2000).
Light
The narrator describes the nightclub as “a short, dark street,” where the lights were too dim to see. According to the narration, this shade of darkness was a more or less a consolation for Sonny. Older musician Creole is said to “erupt(s) out of the atmospheric lighting” telling Sonny, “I have been sitting right here... waiting for you.” (Baldwin, 1970) The solution to Sonny’s misery is within the darkness and not in escaping it. When Sonny looked at the bandstand brightness, the narrator says the musicians are “careful not to step into the circle of light too suddenly: that if they moved into the light too suddenly, without thinking, they would perish in the flame.”Once the musicians begin to play, “the lights on the bandstand, on the quartet, turned to a kind of indigo. Then they all looked different there.” (Gale, 2015) According to the explanations given from the story, teams worked together to create something new. The light is believed to make them more visible which is a product of their hard work. Once the musicians begin to play, “the lights on the bandstand, on the quartet, turned to a kind of indigo” The story is told through music and not words which are a form of dialogue amongst several players. Based on the story, this is a speechless talk that musicians use to bring out contrast among the resigned “old folks.” (Tracy, 2015)
Baldwin has a way with words as presented in this piece of work. As the story is narrated, he delights in bringing the experiences of his childhood. Although the two were brought up in the same locality, their characters turned out to be different. Light and darkness in this case is symbolic and forms the main themes of the story. The story brings out a clear picture of the daily lives of the black in America. The young people are left with no option but to struggle with issues of drugs just as the generation that was before them. Music has been used extensively to put the tiny pieces together. Sonny’s character is deemed dark given that drugs transformed a person in the negative direction of life. Light is contrasted to darkness hence is associated only with the good things. The negative things that one indulges in are referred to as darkness.
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. Sonny's Blues'. USA: Klett, 1970.
Gale. A study Guide to James Baldwin's Sonny Blues . USA: Cengage Learning , 2015.
Reid, Robert. "The Power of Darkness in Sonny's Blues." JSTOR (2000): 443-453.
Tracy, Steven C. "Sonny in the Dark: Jazzing the Blues Spirit and the Gospel Truth in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”." September 2015. 4th November 2018 .
