Grace in Music Love in Literature

Music and Understanding in Sonny’s Blues

Sorrow, suffering, loss, and understanding are some of the main themes in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”—but another theme worth exploring is the power of music to do something to the soul that words cannot do. The title of the short story makes references to Sonny’s blues—as in his depression—and his blues, as in his music. Therefore, it is important to consider his music as part of the deeper meaning of the story. The narrator of the story initially feels that Sonny is wasting his life by chasing his dream of being a blues player in a world full of drunks, addicts, and wayward individuals. However, by the end of the story, the narrator has realized that the whole world is that way—not just the world of the blues. In fact, the blues as a form of music become for him a way to transcend the depression and suffering and factors that lead one to addiction and anger and isolation. Whereas before the narrator views the music scene with suspicion and hatred, he finally realizes thanks to some grace and reflection that there is love in this music that helps to uplift the soul in a way that human words cannot.

The story’s meaning is all the more impactful because of the reversal experienced by the narrator and the reader alike. The narrator is a teacher. He is used to using words and math (numbers) to teach his students and educate their minds. What the reader soon realizes, though, is that this teacher is in need of a lesson for the heart. He reads of Sonny in the newspaper and all of a sudden his brother “became real to me again” (Baldwin 1). He is separated from his brother, suffering from his own sadness due to loss and personal pain. But this news that his brother will be performing live now comes home to him and hits him where he needs to be hit—in the gut—and soon that hit will spread to his heart with the music that pours out of Sonny later at the club. For now, as the story opens, the narrator struggles to make sense of the sensations and feelings that arise within him after reading the paper and the news of Sonny.