James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny Blues” is about a young jazz musician named Sonny, who is from Harlem, New York. Sonny gets addicted to heroin and gets arrested for utilizing and selling drugs. After he is released from prison he returns back to his childhood neighborhood. He moves in with his brother, who is the narrator of this story and his brother’s family. During Sonny’s stay, him and his brother reconnect after dealing with one another anger towards each other. The focal point of this story is drugs, but also it’s about family, music, and trying to overcome life’s struggles.

The byword “Sonny’s Blues” doesn’t arise until the end of the story when Sonny is playing his piano at a nightclub. The term “blues” could be referring to …show more content…
Light illuminates, both literally and figuratively. When the mother of Sonny and the brother, tells the narrator how his uncle passed away, she speaks of a moonlit night and a moonlit road. When Sonny is performing at the club the spotlight on him turns blue, that’s when the narrator experienced a sort of revelation about his brother. When Sonny placed the scotch and milk above him on the piano, the narrator says that it “glowed”, just as Sonny seemed to be glowing in the light of his music. That glow is indicating something special, the milk and scotch might symbolize Sonny’s past and present. Young’uns drink milk and adults drink scotch, his music that he played expresses his pain and sorrows from the past and present. “The light from the bandstand spilled just a little short of them and, watching them laughing and gesturing and moving about, I had the feeling that they, nevertheless, were being most careful not to step into that circle of light too suddenly: without thinking, they would perish in flame”. The “light” represents agony and Sonny, belongs in the circle of light because he has endured his ordeal by fire and survived, his music testifies to his right to be