Magallon 1

Israel Magallon
Prof. Wilson
English 123
2/26/18

Redemption through Music

The role of music in Sonny’s Blues is a key element in Baldwins short story. The way

Baldwin integrates Jazz with brother relationship is fascinating and literary art. Sonny’s Blues

gives us a dark look inside Harlem in the early 1950s and the harsh conditions African

Americans had to overcome to beat adversity. We embark on this dark journey by learning about

Sonny’s drug addiction and the relationship he shares with his brother, who remains nameless

and is the narrator of the story. The tittle Sonny’s blues is very thought out because it gives us

many interpretations of what Blues means. Blues is a genre of music created by African

Americans that gave it their own identity and inspire many musicians to this day. Although blues

music plays an important theme it’s until the end where we see why Baldwin wanted to integrate

it into his story. Baldwin integrating blues music plays the part of redemption and the force that

the narrator needed to open his eyes. Suffering and pain become blue and music takes the

narrators soul into the light of Sonny’s real identity.

Blues Music was and is a very popular art form amongst African Americans especially in

Harlem. It being the spotlight of said art Baldwin uses the setting and music as one to provide a

catalyst in the brothers’ relationship. When Sonny tells the Narrator, he wants to be a Jazz

Musician, the brother doesn’t take it very well. The Narrator says, “I simply couldn’t see why on

earth he’d want to spend time hanging around nightclubs, clowning around…It seemed beneath
 Magallon 2

him, somehow” (103). The narrator is a smart and well-educated man only sees school as the

answer to overcome the cruel life of Harlem. He doesn’t see decency in Sonny becoming a Jazz

musician. He calls them “good-time people” just like his father did. Just like he sees Harlem as a

dark and painful world that he himself was able to defeat by becoming an algebra teacher. Sonny

wants to follow a similar route and pursue his passion of being a pianist, so he also can be

someone important. However, for a moment the narrator crushes his brother’s dream and can’t

take Sonny seriously. Baldwin creates the obstacle of brotherly difference because not only does

Sonny have to conquer his environment but also like Jones says in “Finding a Way to Listen,” “it

is a passion he tries to share with those whom he loves” (9). All Sonny wants is an outlet to

express his feelings. That was the case with many blacks in this era and Baldwin wanted to use

the art of music to relate it to reality and the harshness a black person goes through to achieve

success.

The division of Sonny and the narrator grows wider. After Isabel’s mom knows that

Sonny hadn’t been to school, Sonny confesses that he had been hanging out with “musicians and

other characters.” They get into a fight and Sonny joins the Navy. This part of the story plays an

important part because Isabel knows exactly what just happen “they penetrated his cloud, they

had reached him…they had stripped him naked and were spitting on that nakedness” (106). It

tells us that Sonny had fallen to the hard life of Harlem and not even music could have saved him

from trying drugs because that’s what happens. Music led him to ditch school and hang out with

the wrong crowd. Sonny knew that Isabel’s family were getting tired of his playing. With no love

shown towards his passion he decided to look for people that could listen to him. Unfortunately,

it was the end “Sonny was at the piano playing for his life” (106). Sonny’s fall was imminent.

Everybody around him was being selfish. However, Baldwin wanted the reader to know that
 Magallon 3

Sonny’s life hadn’t gone downhill because of music. In deeper context, it wasn’t because he

started playing the piano that he started to do heroin. It was that his “family” wasn’t there to hear

him play and be moral support towards his dream even if he wasn’t good at it. Sonny wanted

redemption for what Harlem was doing to his people, but he also fell to the dark side.

The narrator’s guilt is present after he finds out that his brother was caught using and

selling heroin. He feels like it’s his fault that his brother ended up like that. When Sonny writes

back to the narrator after his daughter Grace dies we see he tries to say that him being a musician

had nothing to do with it. In his head, Sonny knows music wasn’t the cause of his addiction, but

it was. Music was meant for his brother. All those hours spent listening to records and practicing

the piano was all meant for his own redemption, to prove to his brother he could be someone.

That he could free himself from a society that was killing its own people. Now that the narrator

feels guilty he is looking for his own redemption. This shows the connection the brothers have.

Even though one brother has fallen into unhealthy habits that are almost impossible to get out of.

The connection the author tries to convey is that there will always be redemption between

family. No matter how hard someone falls behind, even if they hit the lowest point. Brotherly

love and with the help of music can help create a connection. In “Finding a Way to Listen” Jones

says, “Sonny's fall and his later description of that descent that he shares with his brother is the

price he pays for professional and personal success.” (475) It’s a valid point because many

people only see what an artist can do and not all the obstacles someone has overcome to be that

professional who can transfer joy to his audience. That’s why Baldwin wanted a character like

Sonny to suffer and have a broken relationship with the person who’s presuming to be closest to

him. In his reason, Baldwin feels like the person who suffers is a person who can truly influence

others. Sonny was able to finally get his brother to listen to him. That’s all Sonny ever wanted.
 Magallon 4

Sonny and the narrators’ reconciliation happens at the end of the story. After the

flashbacks are over, the narrator is seen in the living room window looking outside where he sees

a revival group singing. While this is going on his brother walks in and makes a remark about the

lady singing outside. Sonny says “her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like

sometimes… it makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time…it makes you feel in

control. Sometimes you’ve got to have that feeling” (109). This is a very important quote in the

story where sonny confesses what heroin makes him feel like. His environment and the narrator

included were always controlling Sonny. That’s why he needed drugs to make himself feel that

he could be whatever he wanted to be. He continues by saying, “I needed a fix, I needed to find a

place to lean, I needed to clear a space to listen and I couldn’t find I did terrible things to me”

(111). It all comes back to that moment where Sonny needed the support of his family. He

wanted his brother to care for him and guide him towards being the pianist he admired, Charlie

Parker. His addiction was meant to be music and that didn’t happen. His addiction became

heroin that was the only thing helping him play. Baldwin wanted us to see that heroin was meant

to be his brother. Music was meant to be the product of a brotherly bond. Instead, the only bond

sonny found was this drug.

Sonny decides to invite his brother to a nightclub to watch him play. Sonny starts very

rough; however, he gets back on track and that’s where his brother sees the light. “Sonny’s

fingers filled the air with life, his life…I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we

would listen, that he would never be free if until we did” (114). In other words that was the only

way to redeem himself. He needed to listen to Sonny’s blues. The narrator finally understood

everything. Baldwin created one of the most powerful scenes in a short story. We could feel and

see what the narrator was expressing. That’s why Baldwin wanted music to be that bridge to let
 Magallon 5

us and the narrator in Sonnys world. He didn’t want to paint Sonny as this horrible person

because he was not. Sonny was always good but felt he was alone. That’s what Sonny was, a

musician and a brother. Although the narrator finally saw what his brother was made of he says,

“I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a

tiger” (115). He’s referring to the fact that Sonny’s drug addiction can’t be erased. Something he

will fight until the day he dies. Not only that but he needs to fight all the evil that’s going to keep

surrounding him. But now the narrator has reconciled through music and will eventually guide

Sonny the right way.

Music helps people cope with hardship and suffering. In this story, Baldwin uses the

power of Jazz to reconcile the broken relationship of two brothers. Blues music easies the tension

between them and at the end they can reconcile in harmony. Sonny’s Blues creates a balance

between dark and light. Sonny’s drug addiction being the dark and Music being the light. Both

had big effects on both Sonny and his brother. Baldwin wanted to make that connection, so we

could see that drug addiction takes over peoples’ lives and leaves you in a dark place while

music in the other hand gives you spotlight; it gives you a spiritual high. A high that can be

controlled and, in this case, gave the outlet for his brother to see who Sonny really was. Sonny

expresses his pain through music but also his drug addiction was a way to suppress his pain and

solitude. Music may have led Sonny into the destructive world of heroin but at the end, it was the

force that led him into his brother’s heart.

 Magallon 6

Works Cited

Jones, Jacqueline C. "Finding a Way to Listen: The Emergence of the Hero as an Artist in James

Baldwin's 'Sonny's Blues.'" CLA Journal, vol. 42, no. 4, June 1999, pp. 462-82. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/44323260.

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” Norton Introduction to literature, Edited by Kelly J. May,

W.W. Norton, 2017, pp. 93-115