Sonny’s Blues

“Sonny’s Blues” was first published in a mainstream magazine in 1957 and was collected in Baldwin’s 1965 book “Going To Meet The Man”. Sonny’s Blues” is a short story set in the ghetto of Harlem, NY. James Baldwin wrote “Sonny’s Blues” to articulate how the African-American culture enabled countless numbers of Blacks to escape, survive, endure and overcome various types of institutionalized racism and accompanying forms of social, economical and political oppression. African-American culture refers to a particular society at a particular time and place, which expresses and shares a set of learned beliefs, values, tradition, history, arts, religion, food and music. The different forms of the African-American culture gave blacks a sense of belonging. Music for instance, is a powerful language, which speaks to us, moves us and fills us with emotion. In “Sonny’s Blues” the voice of jazz music mediates the relationship between two brothers. More importantly it focuses on the two characters as having two different perspectives on life, which keeps them apart. The younger brother, Sonny is energized by the emptiness that