In Tracey Sherard’s 1998 analysis, “Sonny's Bebop: Baldwin's ‘Blues Text’ as Intracultural Critique,” which covers James Baldwin’s 1957 intuitive short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” she conveys that Baldwin created the title to be questioned for its connection to jazz or more specifically Bebop, so Baldwin’s intent of broadcasting African American struggles throughout history can be conveyed through a pair of brothers connected by this music, which acts as a medium for his ultimate message. The author portrays his story of the two brothers where, through music, they eventually accept their living conditions and overcome the emotional barriers that were placed on them due to not only their African American history, but also the conditions they were …show more content…
In focusing on her segments of the storyline with the two brothers, she begins by clarifying that although Baldwin called it “Sonny’s Blues,” the piece leans towards jazz, and more specifically, bebop. Upon seeing this, the reader can now read with the author’s intent of portraying the main theme through the two brother’s story. The brother’s start off by being polar opposites in their pursuit “to survive post-Korean War Harlem (Savery 167) in his own way” (Sherard 692). The narrator tries to have a respectable living by “teaching algebra and ignoring the struggles” of his childhood, his brother, and even his connection to the community. Sonny, his brother, goes down a darker path in his quest to get away from Harlem through “musical membership,” which drives them further apart initially (Sherard 692). Sonny penetrates the barrier between them with a letter from prison. At the time they start to reconnect, the narrator also starts to hold the burdens of the community instead of “avoiding” them (Sherard 696). Sherard starts to find the bridge between the brothers reconciliation and music after narrator hears of his father’s death and begins to “understand Sonny’s personal story...traditionally related through the blues” (697). At the time Sonny runs away from Isabel’s house, the absence of his music “ demonstrates a …show more content…
She states that when the narrator first heard about Sonny’s aspirations to be a musician, the word jazz seemed heavy and real for it not only concerns “the music itself, but the people it represents” (699). While listening to Sonny’s bebop, the narrator sees what he believes to be a terrible relationship between the instrument and the musician, which Sherard translates to be parallel with “the relationship between African Americans and their own history” (701). Forms of music in this passage, street revival music, which produced the blues, were created with the intent to “‘soothe a poison’ out of their listeners” to help them escape or “retreat from the social, political material” that are very prevalent and tolling in African American history (Sherard 703). Aside from showing the theme of using music to cope with the trials and tribulations of African Americans through the brothers, Sherard also constantly relates it to the bigger picture that Baldwin was trying to portray by connecting the theme to all African