Sonnys Blues

As being an older brother you have a natural instinct to look after and protect your younger brother when ever possible. The short story by James Baldwin "Sonny's Blues" opens, the narrator tells of his discovery that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested for selling and using heroin. Both brothers grew up in Harlem, a neighborhood rife with poverty and despair. Throughout the story the narrator looks back on the life choices of his younger brother which started his path to jail. As he reminisces he sees the signs and knows that he has ignored them. Though Sonny needs for his brother to understand what he is trying to communicate to him and why he makes the choices he makes, the narrator can not relate with because he fears the truth and sets up barriers of denial around their relationship.

When the narrator reads about Sonny in the newspaper it shows how he still is missing the signs and reassuring himself in his doubt about Sonny's life. "It was not to be believed and I kept telling myself that ..." (2). Clearly the narrator does not want to deal with the reality of Sonny and has been carrying this delusion about Sonny his whole life. While the narrator is in disbelief I think deep down he knows about Sonny but doesn't want to admit it. "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. I hadn't wanted to know. I had had suspicions, but I didn't name them, I kept putting them away" (4). This I think shows the narrator has always known the truth about Sonny and has had an emotional wall that has been the barrier between him and Sonny.