An interesting question that can be posed after reading James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blue” is if the narrator has changed. In the beginning, we get the sense that the narrator feels like he’s above most people. I mean, it is pretty impressive that he has relatively paved his own way by focusing on his education. He kept his mind straight, avoiding the many distractions I’ll bet he encountered on his way to becoming a math teacher. Because of this, he tends to look down upon those who lose track of their education. This is evident when he runs into one of Sonny’s friends and states, “I hated him. I couldn't stand the way he looked at me, partly like a dog, partly like a cunning child” (105). The narrator takes one look at this “boy” and equates him with a immature, misguided child who has no business hanging around the school playground. Now, first of all, the narrator remembers that this “boy” was one of Sonny’s friends, so I’m assuming that, right off the bat, the narrator is starting to place the blame of Sonny being arrested on this mystery guy. In fact, he refers to him as a child, even though he is a grown-up man. The narrator is stating that this man has yet to grow up and find a life for himself, unlike the narrator, who has become a successful mathematics teacher. In the narrator’s mind, this man has yet to move forward with his life as it seems like he has no direction to go with the way he’s living.
But, the narrator has a slight change of heart (don’t get too excited though) when this man mentions that he’s scared that Sonny’s incarceration could possibly be his fault. Having heard this, the narrator states, “I began to listen more carefully” (107). Listening proves to be very hard for the narrator, as we’ll see later on, because he believes that he doesn’t have to listen to those below him. He’s made a successful life for himself, so why should he listen to those who haven’t? But, once he sees that this man is handling the situation with Sonny better, seemingly acting more mature than he is, he begins to listen, because right now, he is wading in unfamiliar territory. Sonny and his brother barely even know each other and so the narrator is struggling with the idea that maybe it’s too late for Sonny and his help. Thankfully, the narrator decides to write to Sonny, even though it takes him a while, he still reaches out to his brother.
This leads me to when he and Sonny sit down and talk about the future. Now, I know this is before Sonny gets arrested, but this scene comes when the narrator is reminiscing and it helps play into my third point...so deal with it. Now, as the narrator sits down with his brother and asks him what he wants to do with his future, it seems as if he asks a loaded question. “What do you want to do?” (119). Now, this kind of question seems open ended, but I’m sure that is not the case with the narrator. He asks this question with the intent of wondering how far in the educational system Sonny will go up to, like if he’ll possibly become a math teacher like his older brother. So, he is surprised, and disappointed, to find out that Sonny plans to drop out of school to become a musician, a jazz musical to be specific. Now, the idea of become a jazz musician in particular doesn’t resonate with the narrator. Sonny’s brother is a math teacher, so he is a man of formulas and control. But, with jazz musicians, people are allowed to let free and improvise, assumably not having a clear path in life. Also, the narrator is seen to belong to a respectable class, and jazz musicians are seen as a rough group of people. (Sorry for the Mr. Sutton reference, but once Aarthi mentioned it in class, I couldn't get it out of my head). Sonny’s brother believes that there is a formula to life: go to school, get a job, and live a stable life. At the moment, Sonny is sacrificing step one, messing up the entire formula and leaving his life up for grabs. The narrator doesn’t get the meaning behind Sonny’s decision because it doesn’t fit into any formula, it’s more broad and free.
This leads me to the final scene, where the narrator actually hears his brother play the keys and seemingly has a revelation. “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we should listen, that he would never be free until we did...I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel’s tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise” (140). Sonny’s piano playing brings his brother back to his own family, ancestry, and even further. It helps him realize the true nature behind Sonny’s talents and why jazz music is so special to him. The narrator has never listened to true jazz music and so once he finally does, he can seemingly understand the real things that have happened in his and Sonny’s life. He can see that jazz is Sonny’s vehicle to fly free in life, just like heroin does to most people, assumably Sonny as well. The narrator is finally, after all these years, able to open his ears and heart to Sonny and accept him for who he is. He may not understand his brother’s choices, but he can see how talented he is and why he’s seemingly addicted to it.
But, the question still stands: Has the narrator changed? I mean, I do feel like he’s had a revelation, but soon, he will return to his job, a job that requires precision and order. Sonny has just given him a taste of his free lifestyle and it would be interested to see if this affected him in any way. I definitely believe that he will view his younger brother differently, but I don’t think the experience will change his personality. Part of why the description of the music Sonny produces is so magnificent, is because we are reading the account of someone who has never been introduced to this kind of music before. So, he doesn't’ truly understand the meaning behind everything, although he can see how the music is a kind of dance in that there’s a lot of push and pull among the musicians as they play together. So, has the narrator changed? Well, we can’t say for sure, because Baldwin leaves it open ended, but I think he won’t have changed much. He may have a new understanding for Sonny, but he will never stop being the brother who pushes his sibling to continue his education so he can have a stable life.
I also noticed that the narrator changed over the course of "Sonny's Blues." At the beginning, he is smart, respectable (maybe even stuck-up) algebra teacher at the local high school. He looks down upon kids who use drugs, which I think is a common mindset many educated people have. Even though the drug use itself is problematic, it is important to note that the reasons behind Sonny (and others like him) getting drawn into this is because of his situation. Heroin gives an incredible high that many people crave if their life is unfulfilling. By the end of the story, I think the narrator begins to realize that he may have played an indirect role in Sonny's decline into drug abuse.
ReplyDeleteI think that the important part of the narrator is that, for once, he's beginning to understand Sonny, which we see at the very end of the story. I think, that if anything, it's set as more an "equalizer;" the music is a means by which the narrator and Sonny can finally see eye to eye.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting question to ponder. When we study fiction, we tend to look at these moments of intense insight (epiphanies, in Joyce's formulation--remember, from Coming-of-Age Novel) as pivotal points in a narrative. And they are: we see characters seeing themselves, and others, and their relation to the world with a new clarity and insight, and it seems reasonable to assume they will "change" in some way, that these moments are important and can shape our experience in profound ways.
ReplyDeleteBut what material "change" can we expect from the narrator after this intense listening experience? It might be hard to *see*, but he seems to have a new respect for Sonny as an artist, and maybe for art in general, and the ability of music, jazz in particular, not to be about "good times" and people "pushing each other around on a dance floor" but rather a deep, introspective reflection on the self and life and love and death, not to mention family history, guilt, pain, and loss. It's nearly a religious moment for the narrator, and it is sealed with an almost ceremonial buying of a drink for Sonny--"the very cup of trembling."
It's as intense an epiphany as you can ask for in a work of short fiction, and in my view, Baldwin really earns it with the way he writes about the musical performance, and the way he sets up this relationship throughout the story. But is it realistic to expect a total transformation? Is this how people work? Or do we have these epiphanic moments (if we even have them), and want to be different, and try to be different, but keep falling back into our established personalities? The narrator seems genuinely moved. It's hard not to imagine that he'll simply look at his brother with a new respect and a new open-mindedness after this glimpse into his "world."
I think the way the last scene was written implies that the brother *has* changed a lot. The word epiphany was used a lot above. The way that the jazz room is portrayed is in a pretty universally-positive light. The brother is our point of reference, so I think that he's seeing this jazz-room not as a surreal dark twisted room of druggie jazz fans, but as a bright surreal (certainly alien, but not darkly alien) environment that is fundamentally human. These druggies are HUMAN! How can he not change his attitude after witnessing the humanity present in the music and the participants?
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