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Flashbacks
Foil
Explanation and Analysis—The Narrator and Sonny:
The narrator and Sonny act as foils in the story, meaning that the juxtaposition of their personalities reveals important aspects of each of the characters. In “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin intentionally juxtaposes the narrator’s rule-following and regimented nature with Sonny’s passionate and artistic personality. This difference between the two brothers comes across in the following passage:
“Well, Sonny,” I said, gently, “you know people can’t always do exactly what they want to do—”
“No, I don’t know that,” said Sonny, surprising me. “I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?”
“You getting to be a big boy,” I said desperately, “it’s time you started thinking about your future.”
“I’m thinking about my future,” said Sonny, grimly. “I think about it all the time.”
Here the ever-practical narrator tries to convince Sonny that “people can’t always do exactly what they want to do” and Sonny retorts, “I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive for?” They once again butt heads when the narrator implies that Sonny is not thinking about his future and Sonny insists that he is (just not in the way that the narrator thinks about his future).
With the brothers' clashing personalities, Baldwin highlights two different ways that people try to limit their suffering in life—the narrator (who is coping with the recent loss of his two-year-old daughter) tries to decrease his suffering by stuffing it down and leading a rigid life, while Sonny uses drugs and music to try to escape or transcend it. It is only at the end of the story, when the narrator attends Sonny’s jazz performance at a nearby nightclub, that he is able to understand the way that music can help him befriend rather than outrun his suffering.
Related Themes:
