Sonny and the narrator both try to escape the past, a time defined by several elements: the darkness which is a constant presence in the story, the physical environment of Harlem (including the smell, which disgusts Sonny), drug addiction, and the inevitability of suffering. These elements might be regarded as themes in themselves, but they are bound together by the ways in which the two brothers attempt to escape from all of them. Most of the story chronicles their failure to do so, though the last scene, in the nightclub, allows them a temporary and transcendent escape through the power of music.

The narrator is an educated, responsible man with a job teaching high school algebra. He lives in a fairly new housing project, which started to become rundown almost as soon as it was built. He realizes as he brings Sonny back home to stay with him that his home is “really just like the houses in which Sonny and I grew up.” He continues:

The moment Sonny and I started into the house I had the feeling that I was simply bringing him back into the danger he had almost died trying to escape.

Sonny himself later recalls that he ran away and joined the navy to escape from drugs, an attempt that proved ineffective, since he was later arrested for selling and using heroin. However, even the drugs themselves are only another attempt to escape from suffering. The brothers both agree that “there’s no way not to suffer,” but Sunny maintains that this has never stopped people from trying.

While the brothers are talking about suffering, Sonny refers to a woman who has just been singing at a revival meeting. It has suddenly occurred to him how much she must have suffered to sing like that, and he vehemently declares, “It’s repulsive to think you have to suffer that much.” This foreshadows the final scene, in which Sonny understands that the way he can overcome suffering, and every other aspect of his past, is not to flee from it but to confront, express, and surmount it through his music.