James Baldwin begins the novel of Sonny’s blues with the narrator’s mother, charging him with watching over Sonny, asking him to serve as his brother’s keeper. The dynamic between the two brothers is a parallelism to the relationship between the brothers Cain and Abel in the Bible. In that narrative, Cain, after murdering Abel, asks whether he is supposed to be his brother’s keeper. The narrator, following his mother’s death, is presented with a similar dilemma. Since their mother’s death, Sonny’s life has been marred by prison and drug abuse. The tension between the two brothers is so great that after one particular fight, Sonny tells his brother to consider him dead from that point on, a statement that, again, deliberately echoes the biblical narrative of Cain and Abel. Baldwin’s sentences also contain a biblical tone and rhythm. Like Cain, the narrator turns his back on his brother and fails, at first, to respond to Sonny when he is prison. He has failed to live up to his mother’s commandment that he watches over his brother—but the failure is only temporary. By the end of the story, the narrator has taken Sonny back into his home. He finally takes on the role of his brother’s keeper, constantly watching and worrying over Sonny as he emerges from the darkness of prison and drug abuse.
The idea of brotherly love extends beyond the relationship between the narrator and Sonny into the community as a whole. Harlem is plagued by drugs, poverty, and frustration, but members of the community come together to watch over and protect one another. The adults spend their Saturday afternoons sharing stories, providing a sense of warmth and protection to the children around them. The narrator, although initially angered by one of Sonny’s old drug-addicted friends, in the end recognizes his connection to the man and offers him money. Even Sonny, for all his problems, helps the people around him endure and survive by channeling their frustrated desires into his music.