Character Analyis of the Narrator in Sonny's Blues

The narrator of the story “Sonny’s Blues” tries to repress the realization of the limitations on the African American race. The narrator has accustomed himself to the middle class lifestyle and tries hard to conform to make his life in the Harlem ghetto an easier one. He is a high school algebra teacher who had assimilated to the point where he was accepting of the boundaries that existed in the African American community. The narrator uses conformity as a way to escape the realities of the racia

With his brother in a penal establishment and himself a member of the educational establishment, it’s fitting that the narrator would read about Sonny’s imprisonment while reading the newspaper, probably an establishment press, and while riding on the subway, an appropriate vehicle for someone who hasn’t risen above his origins so far as he hopes. (Murray 353)

And it turned out that everyone at the bar knew Sonny, or almost everyone; some were musicians, working there or nearby, or not working, some were simply hangers-on, and some were there to hear Sonny play. I was introduced to all of them and they were very polite to me. (Baldwin 101)

Sonny gets himself mixed up in a world of drugs that ends him up in prison for using and selling heroine. Although it may seem that Sonny uses drugs to escape his surroundings he actually tries to escape Harlem to escape the drug addict life. Sonny does use music to try and escape the reality of his situation. “In committing himself to the bebop sub-culture Sonny attempted to make virtue of the necessity of the isolation imposed on him by his color.” (Riley 58)

81) “At this point in the story his opinion is evidently that Sonny and many of the young students are beaten and he, fortunately, is not.” (Riley 56) The day that he learns of Sonny’s arrest he stops after classes to listen to his students in the courtyard of the school. It is that day that he realizes that the laughter he is hearing is not the typical laughter of teenage boys, but that the boys “laughter is disenchanted rather than good-humored.” (Riley 56) The narrator is impacted by the sounds that he hears in the courtyard because for so long he has shut them out because they were a reminder of the environment that he is amidst. At the end of the day the narrator is given another chance to come to terms with what has happened to his brother.

Although he knows that the music alone won’t change the conditions for African Americans, he understands it and is more willing to accept parts of his culture that

Some topics in this essay:
African American, African American’s, Israel Isaiah, James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues, African Americans, Life Lesson, harlem ghetto, riley 56, baldwin 81, racial boundaries, surroundings harlem ghetto, escape limitations, boundaries existed, cup trembling, community narrator, surroundings harlem, narrator barmaid, riley 56 narrator,