In “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin tells the story of two brothers and their challenges in life. Their challenges deeply intertwine, and yet they are very different. While the narrator’s challenge is to take responsibility for his brother, Sonny, Sonny’s challenge is, however, to be independent from his brother’s responsibility, or anybody else’s. The irony is that these two challenges counter each other. Sonny’s challenge is to become self-sufficient, while the narrator’s challenge is to help him become self-sufficient. It is funny, isn’t it, that to be independent, he must first accept help from another?

The narrator’s feeling of responsibility towards his brother initially started when his mother told him of the ghastly death of her husband’s brother. A group of white men in a car had run him over. After she told the narrator this, she added: “I’m telling you this because you got a brother. And the world ain’t changed. […] You got to hold on to your brother” (Baldwin, 993).

After this moment, the narrator forgets what his mother had told him for a period until she dies. “Two days later I was married, and then I was gone [...] and I pretty well forgot my promise to Mama until I got shipped home […] for her funeral” (Baldwin, 993). Then, at the funeral, remembering his mother and his responsibility, he asks Sonny about what he would like to do with his life. Sonny tells him he would like to be a musician, and, feeling music as a badly paying career, he tries to dissuade him. “Its not going to be so funny when you have to make a living at it, let me tell you that” (Baldwin, 994). This scene reflects how the narrator strives to take responsibility for his brother and feels the need to push him in the right direction.

Sonny also has many challenges. His first is to deal with his addiction so he can proceed to a better, more fulfilling life. His challenge is also to become independent. There is evidence of this when he tells the narrator he wants to leave Harlem to join the army and consequently skip school. Fearing for Sonny’s education and life, the narrator strongly discourages him from leaving. “I know how you feel. But if you don’t finish school now, you are going to be sorry later that you didn’t” (Baldwin, 996). Eventually he convinces Sonny to stay, but Sonny does so reluctantly. At this point, Sonny has little money. He wants to join the army to get out of Harlem, and so that he does not have to be dependent on Isabel. This in effect shows his want to become independent. When the narrator feels his responsibility towards Sonny and tries to dissuade him, their challenges clash. The narrator’s challenge to be responsible for Sonny clashes with Sonny’s challenge to be self-responsible.

The resolution of this story is interesting, because both Sonny and the narrator mutually conclude that life can never be free of suffering. The narrator even stated, “there’s no way not to suffer” (Baldwin, 1001). Towards the very end, he also says, “I heard what [Sonny] had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth” (Baldwin, 1006). Though it never actually says Sonny gave up drugs, they come to an acknowledgment of each other’s suffering. This is symbolized by the cup of trembling (which in turn symbolizes suffering) that the narrator imagined in his mind’s eye hovering above Sonny’s head: “For me, then, as they began to play again, it glowed and shook above my brother’s head like the very cup of trembling” (Baldwin, 1006).

In the end, Sonny never seems to fulfill his challenge. It is implied that he is still dependent and still addicted to his drugs by the fact that they conclude that there must be suffering. The narrator however does succeed in his challenge. He takes responsibility for Sonny in the end. He was there for him.

Works Cited

• Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” Connections, Literature for Compositions. Quentin Miller and Julia Nash. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. 984-1006.