Critical analysis of Sonny's blues

¶ … Sonny's Blues": Two brothers, two parallel lives

James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" is contingent upon a comparison of the lives of two men, Sonny's brother and Sonny himself. Sonny's brother is a stable family man with a wife and two children, a respected schoolteacher. Sonny is a heroin addict and jazz musician. On a schematic level, they represent two sides of the African-American experience, as chronicled by Baldwin during the 1960s. On one hand, Sonny's unnamed brother seems to have made the 'right' choices, unlike his ne'er-do-well brother. However, Sonny's brother clearly mourns certain aspects of life that Sonny has enjoyed, such as Sonny's passion for music. Sonny's brother clearly feels that he has lost something in capitulating to the ideals of white society, even though his brother's absorption in a world of drug use suggests that Sonny's life is not a model one would want to follow. The differences between the brothers are embodied in their feelings about jazz music, a historically black form of art. Sonny's brother cannot understand it at all. Sonny, in contrast, loves jazz but is drawn to its dark side, including the culture of drug use.

When Sonny meets the narrator on after many years, the narrator is struck by the different paths they have taken and the fact that when Sonny started using 'horse' he was probably the age of the narrator's students. The two men return home, drawn together by a blood connection, the only thing that unites their very different life paths:

Yet, as the cab moved uptown through streets which seemed, with a rush, to darken with dark people, and as I covertly studied Sonny's face, it came to me that what we both were seeking through our separate cab windows was that part of ourselves which had been left behind. It's always at the hour of trouble and confrontation that the missing member aches.

The narrow roles that white society offers for black men forces both brothers to 'lose something: in the case of Sonny, it is his ability to lead a stable and meaningful life. In the case of the narrator, it is his sense of blackness and history. One aspect of life that the narrator feels he has inextricably lost is music, the thing which Sonny remains connected to until the very end. Heroin and jazz have a strange, unique relationship within the context of the narrative. On one hand, the life of a jazz musician draws Sonny intro drug use (like it did so many musicians of his generation): on the other hand, without music Sonny would have nothing. Sonny's freedom and connection to music, despite his enslavement to heroin, fills the narrator with lasting regret about his own life:

"Sonny's Blues"…addresses the need for a new form of cultural narrative as a repository for the experiences of African-Americans. When the narrator comes to understand his brother Sonny through the latter's apparent struggle to strike out into the deep, unexplored waters of jazz improvisation, the metanarrative quality of jazz is foregrounded; the "blues" Sonny plays are a commentary on the historical context and function of the blues Baldwin suggests are inadequate to convey the "sad stories" of urban Harlem (Sherard 691)

This highlights the limited narratives provided to African-American men to express themselves. Theoretically, since the narrator elevates himself from the ghetto, he has constructed a kind of new 'song' for himself, just as theoretically Sonny, through the improvisational medium of jazz, is trying to write a different tune for himself. However, cultural boundaries hem both of them in. The respectability that the narrator gains cuts him off from the vital, musical life embodied in his brother's existence. The freewheeling nature of jazz is not enough to convey the sadness of Sonny and other jazz musicians; otherwise they would not need heroin to buffer themselves against the suffering caused by white society.

Sonny's brother represents extreme repression: he is determined to save his brother and tries to speak the language of jazz and the street but comes off as hopelessly uncool. He has not even heard of Charlie Parker, one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time: "I've been out of touch…You'll have to be patient with me. Now. Who's this Parker character?" he asks. Sonny replies: "Maybe the greatest… that's probably why you never heard of him." Sonny's implication is that his brother does not 'hear' the music of jazz and thus cannot hear his own brother's greatness, which goes unrecognized by the world. In fact, Sonny seems to self-consciously model himself on Parker, a jazz musician who lost his career to drug addiction.

Sonny's brother cannot understand jazz: its nonlinear rhythms do not resonate with him and he feels uncomfortable talking with his brother about it, because he has become so distanced from any form of passion. "I simply couldn't see why on earth he'd want to spend his time hanging around nightclubs, clowning around on bandstands, while people pushed each other around a dance floor. It seemed-beneath him, somehow…I suppose I had always put jazz musicians in a class with what Daddy called 'goodtime people.'" Quite literally, the narrator seems afraid of having a 'good time,' fearing where it will lead him.

At the very end of the story, when the narrator hears Sonny play, he seems to achieve some sort of understanding of what moves his brother: "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now." For the first time, Sonny feels that his brother is listening to him. His brother, unable to look at Sonny with anything but judgment before, begins to understand what music means to Sonny. For a brief moment, Sonny is able to sing his own song, not the song of white men or a song imposed on him by society. "Listen, Creole seemed to be saying, listen. Now these are Sonny's blues." These blues are his own, not the blues of the narrator, of whites, or even of Bird. Sonny has found his 'own voice,' however momentarily. But he is only able to do so playing music, not in words. In words, Sonny is not able to articulate himself, but through music, even after a year of not playing, he is once again able to soar.