The Imagery in James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues

The imagery in James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues

The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin features the struggle of two brothers separated and caught in the entanglements of time, space and ideals. It explores the theme of suffering experienced by Black Americans as individuals fettered by discrimination, unemployment, housing problems, drug addiction, imprisonment and suicide. The use of imagery of light and darkness and music plays an important role in “Sonny’s Blues” by developing the themes of the story about suffering.

The image of light and darkness illustrates the theme of suffering. The opening paragraph of the story contains a metaphorical passage: "I stared at it in the swinging light of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside."(Baldwin 326-327). This image of light and darkness is important because it is a contrast to the unequal society that the narrator and his brother Sonny live in. The darkness represents the actuality of life on the streets of the community of Harlem, where there are a lot of physical, economic, and social barriers. The obvious nature of darkness has overcome the occupants of the Harlem community. The main character, Sonny, a struggling jazz musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing the creativity and artistic ability that lies within him. The narrator, an algebra teacher, observes a depressing similarity between his students and his brother, Sonny. He is fearful for his students falling into a life of crime and drugs, as his brother did. The narrator makes an insightful connection between the darkness that Sonny faced and the darkness that the young boys are presently facing. The narrator makes an insightful connection between the darkness that Sonny faced and the darkness that the young boys are presently facing, which is illustrated in the following quote from the Sonny’s Blues:

“These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone." (327).

The persistent nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a means of escaping the darkness of their lives. The darkness represents the lack of opportunities in that community. This image of darkness shows that the narrator suffers. “Although he tries to block them out, the blues become apparent in the darkness that he sees everywhere, even in his students.”(Wilson 249). The suffering of the narrator results from the cruel realities of the streets have taken away the possible light from the lives of his brother and his students.