Star-Venus Holmes

English 123
Professor Wilson
02/26/18
Final Draft

Life is Too Short

Death is something that is never easy to accept, even if an individual prepares, it’s an

emotional roller-coaster. Death can bring about a valuable lesson that can be learned. It can

bring families and detached friends closer. Suddenly an urge of appreciativeness and

willingness to let bygones be of the past because realization of life is too short to hold grudges.

Sonny’s brother narrates, “I was sitting in the living room in the dark, by myself, and suddenly

thought of Sonny. My trouble made his real” (Baldwin 107). He knows his brother has been

imprisoned for some time, however doesn’t contact Sonny till the death of his daughter, Grace.

This helps Sonny’s brother who is also the narrator, understand the pain and suffering he’s

experiencing. Feelings of pain and suffering, especially from death is often hard to accept. The

death of Grace gave the narrator a chance to reconnect with his brother, and finally, make an

everlasting connection that was long overdue. After Grace’s death, the narrator grew with

compassion, realizing the pain and suffering his brother must be going through. While sitting in

the darkness of his living room, the narrator has a revelation about the relationship between he

and his brother Sonny. He realizes that he desperately needs to let Sonny know that he has his

back before it is too late, because you can’t replace time that is lost.

Since misery loves company, people lean towards others with the same attribute. The

pain and suffering the brothers both face is alike yet so different in their unique ways. The short

story of “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, begins with an algebra teacher, who is also the
narrator. He is reading the newspaper on his way to work on the subway and discovers while

reading the newspaper, Sonny has been arrested for using and selling heroin. The narrator

admits that it didn’t surprise him because he had his suspicions, however, was in denial,

because he didn’t want his brother to meet the same outcomes as most men did in Harlem. At

first, the narrator had no intensions of helping Sonny, but after the death of his daughter,

Grace, he finally felt some compassion and wrote a letter to him. Sonny was pleased to have

received a letter, one of his letters stated, “I’m glad Mama and Daddy are dead and can’t see

what’s happened to their son and I swear if I’d known what I was doing I would never have hurt

you so, you and a lot of other fine people who were nice to me and who believed in me” (97).

The narrator expresses how the letter “made him feel like a bastard” (97). They keep in contact

up until Sonny is released. Faint memories for the first time play in the narrator’s head because,

“I had begun, finally, to wonder about Sonny, about the life that Sonny lived inside” (97). The

narrator experiences growth of understanding empathy and conditioning the bond between

Sonny and himself.

Death has always been a connection between the narrator and Sonny. The last time the

narrator saw his mother alive she gave a heartfelt talk about his brother, Sonny. “I want to talk

to you about your brother,” she said suddenly. “If anything happens to me he ain’t going to

have nobody to look out for him” (100). She also explained that their father had a brother, but

under gruesome circumstances, was never spoken about because of the way white drunken

men murdered him. Their father went through an unexplainable amount of pain and suffering.

“I ain’t telling you all this, she said “to make you scared or bitter or to make you hate nobody.

I’m telling you this because you got a brother. And the world ain’t changed” (102). The
narrator’s mother requests he watches over Sonny after her time has come, because she feels

that no one will look out for him when she is gone. She insists that blood is thinker than water

which in other words, family is what matters most. She demands, “You got to hold on to your

brother,” she said, “and don’t like 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” (102). The

narrator replies, “I won’t let anything happen to Sonny” (102). However, falls short to his

promise when he marries his wife, Isabel two days later and serves in the military. The mother’s

predictions came true, and it’s until the loss of his daughter that causes him to feel tremendous

guilt and empathy towards his brother, Sonny. This guilt that’s built inside the narrator finally

leads him to see Sonny as his baby brother, and that he needs to step up to the promise he

made to their mother. As the narrator reflects on not doing what his mother asks of him, he

begins to have this growth of consideration and interest towards his brother’s well-being.

Sonny and his brother both endure pain and suffering from a place they both try to

escape, Harlem. This contributes to their pain and suffering because Sonny left Harlem yet did

not get away from drugs. Whereas the narrator gets a respectable job, but still lives In Harlem.

Donald C. Murray, in “Complicated and Simple” states, “the author deals with man’s need to

find his identity in a hostile society and in a social situation…” (353). Sonny and his brother deal

with this throughout the whole story because one is addicted to drugs and the other is stuck

living in Harlem, even though he has a legitimate paying job. According to Murray, “Images of

light and darkness are used by Baldwin to illustrate his theme of man’s painful quest for

identity” (354). Sonny and his brother experience pain and suffering from the darkness until

they realize the importance of their relationship and come into the light. Murray claims Baldwin
explains self-realization is reached when something is lost or someone close to you is gone. “To

be aware of oneself, Baldwin believes, is to feel a sense of loss, to know where we are and what

we’ve left behind” (355). For example, “the revelation of his father’s brother’s murder and the

fact of Grace’s death makes Sonny’s troubles real for the narrator and prompt the latter’s

growth in awareness” (355). The narrator recognizes the reality of what struggles his brother

has been going through. Self-realization is represented when the light is turned on and the

narrator makes an effort to listen and understand Sonny.

In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin beautifully executes many ways of

the way people suffer. He intertwines the narrator and his brother Sonny’s suffering equally but

different. No matter how a person suffers, it’s still hard to overcome. Sonny says, “…there’s no

way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of

it…” (110). What Sonny argues is that there is no way to escape suffering. His addition to heroin

was an effort to survive the suffering life offered him. He also explains that suffering causes one

to recover and self-realization. To understand the difficulties and challenges, one must

experience suffering to understand how to empathize and to be kind. It’s not usual for Sonny

and his brother to experience anger towards one another, yet it was so strong that they didn’t

speak for years. The worst thing that could have happened was the narrator ignore the tension

between him and his brother. No one would have gotten a chance to redemption and

eventually gain some peace from all the tension that was happening from the suffering. The

narrator is able to realize his actions wasn’t directed towards him personally and is able to

make amends.
 All things considered, Baldwin packed “Sonny’s Blues” with lots of pain, lost, and

suffering, however was able to let the narrator and Sonny redeem themselves. Baldwin

manages to show suffering from an individual point of view, as well how it affects a family’s

too. Throughout the story, the narrator and Sonny are disconnected from each other and

somehow find their ways back to one another. Baldwin tells the story of the struggles with life

and acknowledge what people go through. By the death of the narrator’s daughter, Grace, the

narrator can understand the suffering his brother is going through. It gives the narrator

motivation to contact Sonny while he is jail and start mending their relationship.

Encouragement of talking about each other’s feelings gave both sides an open communication

that was much needed in order to restore things. The narrator also recognizes that as long as

they live in Harlem, in spite of his best determinations, he has no way of protecting his brother

from suffering that hangs around them. Although, it isn’t easy to know how to help and support

your loved ones, sometimes all a person needs is love and encouragement to bring the best out

in them.
 Works Cited

Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." The Norton Introduction to Literature, edited

by Kelly J. Mays, New York, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 2017, pp. 93-115.

Murray, Donald C. "James Baldwin's 'Sonny's Blues': Complicated and Simple." Studies in Short

Fiction, vol. 14, no. 4, Fall 77, pp. 353-57. EBSCOhost, 0

search.ebscohost.com.library.4cd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=7151144&si

te=eds-live.