Sonny’s Blues (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: James Baldwin
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The 1940's and 1950's
- Setting: Harlem and Greenwich Village, New York
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Sonny
- Genres: Social realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: African Americans, Teaching or teachers, Racism, Substance abuse, Brothers, Drug addiction or addicts, Heroin, Polio
- Locales: Greenwich Village, Harlem, NY
The Story
The narrator, a teacher in Harlem, has escaped the ghetto, creating a stable and secure life for himself despite the destructive pressures that he sees destroying so many young blacks. He sees African American adolescents discovering the limits placed on them by a racist society at the very moment when they are discovering their abilities. He tells the story of his relationship with his younger brother, Sonny. That relationship has moved through phases of separation and return. After their parents’ deaths, he tried and failed to be a father to Sonny. For a while,...
[The entire page is 1565 words long]
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