Sonny's Blues

English 102
Research Paper I
February 14, 2012 In reading James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” we hear a story about class and racial struggles, personal conflict, and redemption. We hear about loss and human emotion. We see this entire story set in nineteen fifty’s Harlem, which, for many American’s is the very picture of poor black culture and environment. The differences in poor black culture and poor white culture show many of the same themes and quirks. Both cultures often find solace in religion. Both cultures use music as a means of both expression and escape. Both often will drive people to also find escape through abuse of alcohol and drugs. People of both cultures will usually either take a high road or low road; either rise to the challenges presented by life, or wind up dead or in prison. What will be examined in this paper is that the uniqueness of black culture is often assumed, but not entirely accurate. We will first look at the obvious characteristic of the use of music. The main character of “Sonny’s Blues” is Sonny, a jazz pianist and heroin addict. Sonny uses Random stuff Random stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom stuffRandom