Sonny’s Blues

                Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a short story that follows two brothers through their hardships of living in Harlem. The narrator of the story is a straightedge teacher, husband, and father who likes to live his life as if nothing bad could happen. His views on life and the good and the bad are quickly turned around when one morning he reads the newspaper and learns about some unsettling news. James Baldwin’s short story Sonny’s Blues is a story of brotherly love and doing the right thing despite existential situations and being in bad faith.

The story starts en medias res, or the middle of the whole story. The way it is describes the narrator reading the story leaves the audience guessing on what is the existential situation. What has the narrator read? Who is it about? And if the narrator is so distraught about the story, how come he is finding it out through a newspaper? The second paragraph answers some questions but brings a fog of situations(he has to get to work and cannot find out more of the situation) and some bad faith the narrator might have had in the past (“he became real to me again” (pg.75)). While the second paragraph finally names the character the narrator is worried about, the audience still does not know who he is. Sonny could be anywhere from a student in one of the narrators algebra classes, a family member or a friend.

By the fourth paragraph the audience knows that Sonny is the narrator’s brother and has been caught with heroin.  For something that is introduced in the first paragraph and is important to the narrator, Baldwin takes his time in releasing the news to the audience. This directly related to the narrators habit of waiting to do something proactive in his situation. The narrator continually puts himself in bad faith when it comes to helping his brother or dealing with any situation involving his brother. Examples include waiting to write to his brother in rehab/jail when he knew he brother hated it there, giving money to Sonny’s beggar friend when he clearly does not want to, and ignoring his mother’s wish that he would take a more active role in Sonny’s life until she died. It is not until the end of the short story that the narrator sees Sonny’s way of life and ontological mystery towards music when they go to the bar and Sonny plays the piano. Baldwin gives hope to the audience that from then on the narrator will be in his brother’s life by helping him stay away from drugs and continue his music career by the narrator buying Sonny a drink while he plays the piano.

James Baldwin’s short story has more purpose beyond the narrator’s bad faith and how he deals with existential situation, including the comparison of good and bad and the difficulties of living in Harlem as an African American. The meaning and purpose of the short story, including the narrator’s reaction to his existential situations, is exemplified by Baldwin’s formal cause of his plot. The fact that he waits to inform the audience of the back story makes it more significant; without knowing who or why the story is a big deal, the audience might shrug it off. Starting the story en medias res makes the beginning of the story more important to the audience and the meaning come across more.

Baldwin use of formal cause and the existential situation he puts his characters in play important roles in his short story “Sonny’s Blues.” His meanings and purpose of writing this short story were conveyed to the audience and by the end of the story, the audience is left hoping the best in the situations that they were left in.