Sonny's Blues

James Baldwin is an extraordinary writer in that he is able to display so many hidden, deeper meanings in such a simplistic manner. The text was a fairly easy read that gained the reader’s attention immediately from the beginning. The opening pages drives the reader to guess what the plot is going to be about as Sonny’s brother talks about how his students remind him of Sonny. I could really relate to the narrator when he talked about the concerns he has about his brother doing drugs because my brother went through a time period in his life where he was addicted to drugs. I did not know for a while, but when I found out, I was devastated and couldn’t believe he could do such a thing. I was immediately hooked in the story because I was so intrigued to see how the narrator dealt with his brother and the addition and I was also intrigued to see if Sonny was going to overcome his addiction like my brother did, or if he was going to be trapped in it forever. Although Sonny had some hard circumstances he had to face, it does not give him an excuse to depend on drugs. His brother grew up in Harlem just as he did and did not turn to drugs as a coping mechanism.

I loved how Baldwin ended the story and referred it to the Bible. When I initially read the last line, I did not know that the cup of trembling was used to describe the suffering that have plagued people in the bible. It represents the suffering and bondage that Sonny went through during his lifetime. Drinking from the cup represents that there is a chance for redemption and peace at the end of his suffering. Baldwin does a great job at keeping the reader questioning at the end because we do not know if Sonny really experienced redemption or if he continued to suffer in his addiction.