“I may have written Sonny the very day that little Grace was buried. I was sitting in the living room in the dark, by myself, and I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble made his real.” (Baldwin, 44)
A widening perspective in Jame’s Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”
In “Sonny’s Blues” a transitional moment in the story happens when the narrators own dark time gives him a new perspective, and encourages him to reach out to his brother. The lines where the narrator says “my trouble made his real” shows how the narrators perspective changes after the event of burying his daughter. In this moment the narrarator has been broken down to the point of significant emotional growth. His sadness gives him a new, and more sympathetic view of Sonny. The imagery is very intentional when the narrarator says that he is “sitting in the living room in the dark, by [him]self”. The darkness is a visual representation of the deep sadness he is feeling due to the loss of his daughter. Further, he also emphazises that he is “by [him]self” to illistrate how the narrator has finally come to the realization that Sonny and him are meant to get through that darkness together. They are brothers—in more than one way, and with the loss of his daughter the importance of having family around is suddenly very aparent. The imagery of “sitting in the living room in the dark” could also be a metaphor for the hardships of being black. However, since Baldwin is a religious man I feel the metaphor for darkness can also relate to the fact the narrarator is not feeling God’s light at this time. He has lost “little Gracie” and the pain of losing a child goes beyond any darkness he has felt. The narrator thinks of Sonny in an epiphanic way because he speaks of it happening “suddenly” showing that it is a major shift in thinking for the narrarator. For so long he was closed off to his brother, but tragedy has broken him down, and he has a new respect for how alone his brother must feel at times. The...