Saturday, April 22, 2017

What does James Baldwin achieve by beginning "Sonny's Blues" as he does?

In beginning "Sonny's Blues" in the manner he does, Baldwin is able to at once imbibe a sense of how deeply the author is still attached to his brother Sonny.

The author conveys to us that in reading the news article about his brother, this moment will forever color his life—



This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done.



In other words, the reader learns that the newspaper account is something that Sonny's brother will never be able to escape.


How can one be certain that this moment is so pivotal? The speaker first expresses his fear for Sonny's well-being: "I was scared, scared for Sonny." The speaker describes his responses to the newspaper account: he reads it over and again, distracted from the world around him as he travels to work. He is filled with disbelief. He does not want to accept it but knows he cannot escape the truth before him. He also experiences a tremendous physical response:



A great block of ice got settled in my belly, and kept melting there slowly all day long. . . it was a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less.



Sometimes the melting ice seemed to harden in his gut, as if he would explode. He takes in the news, and it has a devastating effect on him.


However, even more importantly, the reader is able to understand that there has been a chasm between the two; a chasm so enormous, they have become separated not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally, at least on the narrator's part. He notes: "He became real to me again."


A few paragraphs later with regard to the news, the brother notes:



I couldn't believe it: but what I mean by that is that I couldn't find any room for it anywhere inside me. I had kept it outside me for a long time.



Baldwin creates questions in the reader's mind. He conveys to us that out of nowhere, this news article has appeared and shaken the very foundations of Sonny's brother's world.


Baldwin also conveys the intensity that exists for the narrator, even in the midst of their separation. He is fearful for his brother's sake. He is physically sick over it. The reader also has a sense of history between the two brothers—that a great jumbled mess has driven them apart and kept them disconnected.


Perhaps most alarming and most painful is that one can assume the narrator has been somehow able to live comfortably, with their history and his problems tucked away into a safe and hidden spot inside where he has not had to face itat least until this particular morning.


At the start this short story, Baldwin lays the groundwork for the reader so he or she will not know what to expect. Perhaps in this way, Sonny's story can be told so that one does not automatically rely on the brother's perspective (and his sense of loss) in searching for Sonny's truth. The recounting of the years of difficulty the men have faced allows the reader to more readily comprehend just how complicated their relationship and lives have been, especially for Sonny (in light of his own suffering)—as one compares their very different realities. For there is no simple list of events that could ever hope to explain what motivates Sonny. Similarly, there is no simple explanation of what keeps drawing his brother back to him in an effort to understand Sonny.


With clearer vision of Sonny and his dreams and demons, I would like to believe that the narrator finally realizes the presence of the hope in his heart for Sonny.

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