Sonny's Blues | James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music
In the following essay, Goldman discusses the musicality of "Sonny's Blues," particularly the influence of jazz music, and how the form of the story echoes that of a longer musical work.
In "Sonny's Blues" theme, form, and image blend into perfect harmony and rise to a thundering crescendo. The story, written in 1957 but carrying a vital social message for us today, tells of two black brothers' struggle to understand one another. The older brother, a straight-laced Harlem algebra teacher, is the unnamed narrator who represents, in his anonymity, everyman's brother; the younger man is Sonny, a jazz pianist who, when the story opens, has just been arrested for peddling and using heroin. As in so much of Baldwin's fiction, chronological time is upset. Instead the subject...
[The entire page is 2258 words long]
Join eNotes
The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:
Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Related Topics
Tell a friend about Sonny's Blues at eNotes.
