Racial issues. Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin - Research Paper Example

? Sonny’s Blues – racial issues The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin tells the archives of the bonding amid two brothers at different points intheir living. Baldwin assembles the story’s events to illustrate the edifice of an understanding of the two brothers. Sonny’s brother, who is never named in the narrative, narrates ‘Sonny’s Blues’. Even though the story is focused on the accounts of Sonny’s life, the fact that readers come across from his brother’s reactions to it and his approaches regarding Sonny’s actions widens the span of the narrative to include the brother’s life as well. "Sonny's Blues" is measured as one of Baldwin's finest credible and successful works of short story, as well as a skillful representation of the extensive role jazz play in American society in a broad way and in the African-American society in particular. ‘Sonny's Blues’ is considered as one of Baldwin's best works, a concise and touching investigation of familial and ethnic connections in the modern American society. The story brings out the effect of racism on a person from two different perspectives. While the elder brother tries to conform to the white society the younger one tries to find an outlet for his pains and suffering through taking drugs. This highlights the two sides of experiences shared by Afro-Americans. Though Sonny’s brother has tried to assimilate to the society of the white, the pain was still felt especially through limited opportunities. The two brothers have opted for different routes of life but they come to understand each other. Sonny has often been compared to the Suffering Servant in the Bible who is hated by all but bears all the sadness and the ordeals coming his way (Shuman, 117). Despite his love and care for Sonny, one cannot deny the fact that the lack of understanding and dominating approach of Sonny’s brother enhances the suffering of his artistic soul. Sonny’s spontaneous and impulsive nature is well marked in the story by the fact that he desires to turn into a pianist, a navy officer and then, finally take the course of a druggist. Again in order to come out of drugs he falls back on music. Music has been applied here in both figurative and literal senses to emphasize upon racial issues and those of suffering (Hopkins). This nature makes him end up in jail. Initially he wants to learn music just for his pastime and goes to Isabel’s house to learn the piano. Later on he chooses music as his profession despite his elder brother’s advise against it. Sonny expresses that music was such a passion for him that he would do anything to play it, especially when there is no one who would listen to him or interact with him. The story unfolds to reveal the penitence of a Black American or an Afro-American’s blues through Sonny’s struggle for survival in his individual way. (Mosher, 26) Moore rightly comments, “With graceful eloquence, James Baldwin stirred the moral consciousness of a nation bogged down in matters of race” (Moore, 149). The author lays emphasis on accepting the norms regulated by the whites in the society and an inability to accept them might lead to one’s blues. Sonny is non-conforming to the archetypal norms of the society especially that of the white dominated. While his brother learns to become disciplined and conforms to the norms in order to become integrated into the white society, Sonny makes no such attempts and thus remains wild in terms of his temperament and also the path of life. The consequences that he faces match this nature of his. On the other hand, his brother, though he leads a disciplined life does not have a peaceful time as well. He is worried about Sonny and then the fate of Sonny finds him feeling even guiltier since he does not stay beside him when he should have. The concept of ice in the narration is used here to denote the terrified state of Sonny’s brother and the shock and pain experienced in learning the news of Sonny’s imprisonment. The feeling is somewhat similar to experiencing a chill down the spine or goose bumps. The ice settling in his stomach indicates that he has locked up all the distress about Sonny within himself and as his class got over the narrator says, "my clothes were wet -- I may have looked as though I'd been sitting in a steam bath, all afternoon.” (Baldwin, 1) His brother chooses not to write to Sonny or meet him in jail because he feared the pain would become a part of his life too and did not want the dark shadow in his life which he tries his best to polish up via conforming to the norms of the white society. Sonny’s existence makes the narrator remember the past he has left behind in his childhood and the “vivid, killing streets”. He explains that while some managed to run away from the tap, some could not. (Murray, 355) He only realized Sonny’s pains and grasped him in his life when his own young daughter died of polio. It was at this moment that he could feel the sorrow and pains of Sonny. He brought Sonny to his place to live with him. Here again the fear began to develop when he began suspecting him of taking to drugs again. He felt the same “icy dread again”. Sometime though he hated himself for being so doubtful of his brother’s honesty, but he involuntarily kept checking him for sign of any addiction. His brother then goes on to narrate the story of their lives, their parents’ death and upbringing, how Sonny was interested to become a jazz pianist and for this purpose was practicing at the narrator’s in-laws’ house. However, the pains, miseries and an unexpressed rage inside him always made him look for an outlet. The only way he could express himself was the piano through which he could let his soul out in the form of musical notes. Here gain had not perfected his skill enough to be able to vent his feelings properly. This his mounted to an increased frustration in him and expressing them to the maximum and taking the emotions to the heights was easier than anything - in Sonny’s words, “It's terrible sometimes, inside . . . that's what's the trouble. You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there's really not a living ass to talk to, and there's nothing shaking, and there's no way of getting it out - that storm inside. You can't talk it and you can't make love with it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody's listening. So you've got to listen. You got to find a way to listen. . . . Sometimes you'll do anything to play, even cut your mother's throat." (Baldwin, 21) This revealed the kind of isolation felt by Sonny while living in the society and walking alone in the streets where there as no one to interact and share his feelings with. Hence he would do anything to play the music and give way to his soul’s desires, which he refers as the ‘storm’.   The element of suffering is all over the story. Besides the case of Sonny and the narrator, the readers also come to know of the ill fate of their father who lost his brother and the latter’s character, the way Sonny’s mother puts it, seems to be quite like that of Sonny. His father was very young and he still cries at times. The song’s title, ‘Am I Blue’ at the end of the story also brings out Sonny’s sadness. It also seems to act as the bridge which his brother crosses in order to reconcile their conflicts. One comes across the suffering of the woman singing the gospel songs on the street. She sings terribly but Sonny realizes the pain she is going through. According to Recker the “blues motif in Sonny’s Blues is used to symbolize the unhappiness of the two main characters, the narrator and Sonny, and their resulting estrangement” (Recker, 29) Finally the story seems to be filled with the elements of suffering from the beginning till the end – “the story is permeated with biblical and religious atmosphere which helps develop suffering as a strong theme” (Crawford, 179). It seems to bring about a touch of Orthodox Christian views where the suffering of the characters is analogous to the suffering of Christ. The story presents a paradox because although he title talks about the suffering of Sonny, it finally turns into the narrator’s suffering which enhances owing to his staunch beliefs and ego which wanted him to turn Sonny into a teacher and like him and lead a disciplined life. Thus the story brings out the suffering of the narrator who has to fight every moment within his soul unless he reconciles with his brother and also his roots from which he has kept himself away in order to have a balanced life and a mere illusion of happiness. The author of Sonny’s Blues, James Baldwin, born on August 2, 1924, was an American writer, novelist, short stories, playwright and poet. His work comprises elements of racial and sexual issues of the 20th century. He is noted for the personal way of identifying with the problems of such discrimination and the social, moral and economic pressures that the Afro-Americans and homosexuals have to deal with. Sonny’s Blues is another rich example of his work, which appears in many anthologies of short stories and is taught in introductory college literature classes. The story encompasses lessons that one may apply in his or her daily lives. Works Cited 1. Baldwin, James, “Sonny’s Blues”, August 6, 2011 from: http://www.sjsu.edu/people/cynthia.rostankowski/courses/2b/s2/Sonny's%20Blues.doc 2. Crawford, John W. Discourse: essay on English and American literature, New York: Rodopi, 1978 3. Hopkins, Portia Naomi, Reconstructing the gender, California Institute of Integral Studies, 2007 4. Mosher, Marlene, “James Baldwin’s Blues”, Black Orpheus, 4.2, 22-28 5. Moore, John H. Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Macmillan Reference USA, 2008 6. Murray, Donald C., “James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues: Complicated and Simple”, in Studies in Short Fiction, 14.4, 1977, 353-357 7. Recker, Christine, Varieties of Literary Interpretations of Jazz in American Writings of the 1950s and 1960s, Munich: GRIN, 2008 8. Shuman, Baird R. Great American Writers: Twentieth Century, Oregon City: Marshall Cavendish, 2002. Read More