Sunday, April 24, 2016

Supporting Sonny

In response to Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin
James Baldwin is considered to be one of the greatest writers of his time during the 1900’s. He would write about the discrimination and situation of African Americans, as well as being inspired by his personal experience of living in Harlem in poverty. He was not only an incredible and inspirational writer, but a very prominent Civil Rights activist. Discrimination was a continual theme through his writings as well as showing the injustice and loneliness of African Americans during this time.
One of Baldwin’s most famous writings, Sonny’s Blues, is known to be the story of how two brothers come to understand each other, and an underlying way of showing the two sides of the African-American experience. However, there is a huge aspect of how these two brothers lives are influenced and affected by surrounding, minor characters.
In Sonny’s Blues, Sonny has been sent to jail for using heroin, and his brother, who is also the narrator, has just found out by reading the story in the newspaper. They have not seen each other in over a year, and the story in the paper results in Sonny’s brother eventually writing him. They keep in contact till Sonny comes out of jail, and Sonny goes to live with his brother and his family. Through the story, there is a usage of flashbacks from their past, consisting of memories from their childhood, to Sonny and his brother leaving home, to their parents death, and many more events. In the end of the story, Sonny brings his brother to a club that he plays at, which is where they finally understand each other through Sonny’s music  and his brother finally listening and feeling it.
These events that were shown in the story through flashbacks had minor characters incorporated into them, and they had huge effects on Sonny and his brother’s lives. These characters include their parents, uncle, and the narrator’s wife, Isabel. The minor characters each had their own individual effects on Sonny and his brother and had affected them in ways they did not know or understand.
A very prominent example that had influenced Sonny and his brother in an almost hidden, but still very important way, are their parents. In a flashback, their mother had told Sonny’s brother a story about his father and uncle, who neither of them had known existed before the mother spoke of it. The uncle had been killed by some drunk white men driving, and their father had never been the same after that. She told Sonny’s brother because she was scared for Sonny. She told him, “‘You got to hold on to your brother… and don’t let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you gets with him. You going to be evil with him many a time. But don’t you forget what I told you, you hear?’” (Baldwin). This had been a memory that the brother had recalled, and this had been a huge reason for him essentially writing to Sonny when he was in jail, and creating the whole plot for the story.
Isabel also had a big effect on both Sonny and his brother throughout the story. Before Sonny left town, her and her family had let Sonny stay with them. They had a piano, and Sonny would practice everyday. Isabel wrote Sonny’s brother while he stayed there saying “how it was nice that Sonny was so serious about his music and how, as soon as he came in from school, or wherever he had been when he was supposed to be at school, he went straight to that piano and stayed there until suppertime” (Baldwin). This had been the reason for Sonny living his dream as a musician later in his life. He was able to practice on their piano which had helped him learn and eventually play in jazz groups like he wanted.
In Sonny’s Blues, Sonny and his brother are able to represent two very different sides of the African-American experience in Harlem. Their lives have many different impacts from multiple events and people that help shape them into who they are, which is able to give a real depiction of living in Harlem in the time of struggle and recession. This is not only true for people in Harlem but, in a broader sense, it is able to be connected with anyone at anytime. People are affected by what surrounds them, whether it is people or their acts or events, they are impacted and changed in some way.