'Sonny's Blues'

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at 'Sonny's Blues' by James Baldwin, focusing on the role of the narrator and the success and failure of the character Sonny. According to the paper, the narrator is Sonny's unnamed older brother. The paper further discusses how the issue of success and failure plays a key role throughout the story.

From the Paper:

"Raised on the streets of Harlem, both brothers have surmounted enormous odds to become successful, or at times even to survive. As the story begins the narrator describes his own students who face the same temptations and obstacles he and Sonny once faced (and that Sonny faces now): "They were growing up with the rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities." Clearly, Sonny's brother is a success in many conventional ways. He is an algebra teacher in a high school in Harlem, has a wife and two children, and leads a stable middle-class life. He understands (and believes) that the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary (as the saying goes). On the other hand, we also have a sense that he has had to give up some of who he is in order to become a conventional success. "

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