Sonny Blues

2 Pages 588 Words

In James Baldwin’s 1957 Story, “Sonny Blues,” Which Character, The Narrator Or Sonny, Went Through The Most Significant Transformation In The Effort To Seek A Common Ground As Brothers?
In James Baldwin’s story, Sonny Blues,” the narrator, Sonny’s brother, went through the most significant transformation in the effort to seek a common ground as brothers. The brothers faced many struggles, because Sonny was not able to express himself to the narrator. The narrator is the eldest and was given the charge by his mother before she died of protecting his brother Sonny. He unsure how to do this became more of disapproving father-figure than the understanding brother Sonny needed. Unfortunately for both communication had never been easy in their family.
Sonny who has a love for music wants to be a musician and his brother laughs at him for it. He tries telling his brother what to do and that only pushes Sonny away. Being eight years older, the narrator never really understood Sonny’s obsession for music and its importance to him. The difference in age contributed to a difference in opinion on what was right for Sonny.
Neither brother seemed to know how to handle their own feelings, the situation between them worsened. When the elder brother realized that he could not get sonny to conform to his ideas of what was right, and Sonny felt that his dreams were not being taken seriously by his brother, the brothers had grown further apart, and had nearly given up on each other. Sonny had fallen victim to drugs and was arrested. Painfully the narrator finds out about this in the newspaper. Despite the narrators suspicions and obviousness of the fact it was to hard for him to

conceive. He felt guilty that he had let down his promise to his mother.
After Sonny’s rehabilitation the two finally started making up for lost time. I believe the healing in the...