Question

In “Sonny’s Blues,” what does the narrator mean when he states, “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that [Sonny] could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did”? How does this quote tie into the collective past suffering of African Americans? How does this quote help us understand the story’s meaning? Explain.

Answer 1

Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that [Sonny] could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did”?

In James Baldwin’s narrative, sonny’s sorrow- “cup of trembling”- can only attain meaning when his brother understands that Sonny plays music for his life which is pretty much the street singeing as a street singer who has endured great suffering in life. Sonny plays the blues with a as great a feeling as his pain; he has felt “the blues” of life. It is later that the narrator realises when he says “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that [Sonny] could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did”? He realises that he has felt the angst of losing his child and that he understands sonny’s blues. It is then when the two brothers rescue each other and redeem each other opening the world of suffering and giving it a meaning.

The story is a product of culture that has existed for the legacy of racism that African Americans considered as a source of freeing themselves from the misery they are subjected to. Unfortunately, for many such ethnicities, the escapism from their reality is the use of drugs, most often heroin. In the Baldwin’s story of an African American school teacher whose brother is the drug addict of the title, heroin is Sonny’s drug of choice and whose passion for playing the blues and jazz piano provides his only legitimate release from his racism pain.

The narrator (also the teacher) narrates his estranged relationship with his younger brother and provides details regarding the death of alcoholic father. Their father was financially destitute pretending to be courageous hiding the vulnerability. Later, the narrator tries to make a different approach and listens to what his brother has to say, (making the African Americans speak of their suffering) and accept that freedom can be entailed only if the younger brother is accepted for what he is, (accepting the African Americans with their ethnicity) and allowing freedom to sweep in with own identity.