Sonny's Blues | Themes

Sonny's Blues Themes

In "Sonny's Blues," a man finally comes to understand the darkness and suffering that consumes his brother, and he begins to appreciate the music that his brother uses to calm those blues.

Suffering

The main theme of "Sonny's Blues" is suffering, particularly the sufferings of black people in America. Although Baldwin presents only one example of overt racism in the story—the death of Sonny's uncle under the wheels of a car driven by a group of drunken whites—the repercussions of the treatment received by black people is omnipresent. Sonny's father is tormented by the memory of his brother's death and suffers from a hatred of white people as a result. This hatred, Baldwin suggests, warps his soul. Sonny's mother also suffers from the harshness of life in Harlem and from her knowledge that her younger son feels this suffering more strongly than most.

Sonny's brother, the narrator of the...
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