Through conversation, actions, and events, the thoughts and views of a man of whom we know not even a name are shown. The man is the narrator of "Sonny's Blues" and his thoughts we are shown are those directed towards his brother. Over the course of the story, I think there are three important stages that the narrator goes through, in which his thoughts about his brother change. We see that those stages of thought vary greatly over the narrator's life, from confusion about his brother to understanding. Each stage brings different views of his responsibility toward his brother manhood, and sense of reality. Through out the story, three of the narrator's view are changed, the first of which is Sonny's manhood. During the first stage in the story, the narrator showed that he view Sonny as a child. "I was beginning to realize that I'd never seen him so upset before. With another part of my mind I was thinking that this would probably turn out to be one of those things kids go through and that I shouldn't make it seem important by pushing it too hard."(140). This is an example of how the narrator viewed his brother. He not only thought Sonny acted as a kid, but was also too young to be planning a future or career. He still wasn't a man yet, he was still a child, and he had to watch out for him in all kinds of ways. The narrator decided that he would plan Sonny's future and when Sonny rebelled, the narrator saw it as yet another childish action. Another way in which the narrator's overall view changed was his view on whether Sonny's idea of reality was sound. Still in the first phase, the narrator often presents his view of reality and when Sonny rejects it, the narrator feels Sonny is being unreasonable. For instance, "Well, Sonny,"" I said, gently, "you know people can't always do exactly what they want to do ¾- "No I don't know that,"" said Sonny, surprising me."(142-143). Actually I think that Sonny understood life much more clearly than his brother, but he did not realize that then.
