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Michael Wallach

Professor Fielding

ENGL 260-01

31 August 2009

The theme of the story Sonny’s blues can best be placed best in a single quote provided

by author, James Baldwin: “I wanted to talk about will power and how life could be-well,

beautiful. I wanted to say that it was all within; but was it? or, rather, wasn’t that exactly the

trouble?” Taking place in Harlem, the story describes the relationship of two brothers

throughout their lives, the narrator and Sonny, and their different and similar methods for coping

with the African American struggles of the time. Baldwin begins by immersing the reader in the

neighborhood, by placing them in the conversation, both in the narrator’s thoughts and

discussions. He strives to plant the reader in the middle of the African American mood of the era

and the common loss of hope and will to achieve. “All this was carrying me some place I didn’t

want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it [heroin] felt. It filled everything, the people,

the houses, the music, the dark, quicksilver barmaid, with menace; and this menace was their

reality.” It seems here the author is trying to capture the environment for the reader to show that

everywhere and everything is troubled by actions, such as drug use, to escape reality. Everyone

was a slave to their actions to either deal with or escape suffering. This point is especially

important as it points to this common notion that the suffering, if unavoidable, ought not be fuel

for further suffering or loss of hope, rather, channeled into many forms of healthy expression.

This idea was eventually clear to both brothers. Sonny is able to come alive through music and

express his “inner storm” to others in this form. The narrator is able to cope with the suffering

because of his wife and children and the happiness they bring him. Often, it is easy to get lost in
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the pain experienced in one’s life and to allow it to cloud judgment. However, this story helps

remind readers of how life is more than pain. In fact, when handled appropriately, pain often

defines individuals, making everyone unique in the way they choose to express themselves.