Sonny's Blues | Techniques
For most of the story, Baldwin stays within the conventions governing the genre of social realism. The narrative breaks dramatically, however, in the closing scene at the jazz club: as the narrator tires to explain in words the powerful hold that the music has over him, the language becomes richer, the metaphors more extravagant and complex, and the evocations more elusive.
Sonny himself could not tell his own story so thoughtfully: by filtering his life through the eyes of another, Baldwin is able to offer a point of view that is not corrupted by self-pity or sentimental...
[The entire page is 227 words long]
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