Kelly

Moriarty

Moriarty 1

Mrs.Coppola
Com 131
24 Jan 2015
The Trembling Cup of Light and Shadow
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" a pair of brothers try to make sense of the urban
decay of Harlem that surrounds them externally and internally. This journey of deciphering the
shadows of the streets and their spirit takes on great importance. Baldwin begins the short story
at the halfway mark: Sonny is an active heroin user, trying to turn his life around with the help of
his brother, the narrator. The unnamed narrator must reconcile with Sonnys drug use before
opening up his heart to help his brother. Baldwins motif of light and darkness in Sonnys Blues
illustrates that regardless of the darkness, salvation from the world and ourselves is always
attainable.
The use of light and dark at first seemed stereotypical, light simply meaning good, and
dark simply meaning bad. After several uses though, it becomes clear the author has a more
complex idea. The first use of this motif is when the narrator learns of Sonnys imprisonment in
the newspaper. "I didn't want to believe that I'd ever see my brother going down, coming to
nothing, all that light in his face gone out," the narrator states (74). Recalling his younger
brothers face forces the narrator to think about his students he teaches. He connects the darkness
in Sonnys face to the darkness his students face in the rough streets of Harlem. "All they really
knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and
the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they
now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more

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alone," states the narrator (74-75). This is Baldwins first sense of the devastating, influential
nature of this darkness.
The power of light and darkness as truth and reality is consuming for all of the characters
in "Sonny's Blues," and is present throughout their lives. Baldwin depicts Sonny's and the
narrator's struggle with each other and with the light and darkness as they grow up using a series
of flashbacks. The narrator recalls his mother telling him of an uncle he never knew. He learns
his father's brother was intentionally killed by a car of drunk white men. His father recalls a
night whose moon made it, "bright as day," (83). The father watches as his younger brother is
seen by the men in the pickup truck and is run-down and says that he has, "never in his life seen
anything as dark as that road after the lights of that car had gone away," (84). Sonny's father is
confronted with harsh realities about racism, lower class struggles, and his own brother's death.
The narrator faces these same issues living in the projects, coping with the spiritual death of his
brother Sonny. Baldwin uses this flashback to show that the battle between light and dark is
generations old, that the narrator's father dealt with the same struggle his sons must now
face. The people of Harlem have fought this internal and external battle for generations, and it is
continuously passed down onto the younger generation. It is up to Sonny and the narrator to find
the light and salvation to save themselves from the consuming darkness.
The darkness engulfs the narrator and the young students without their realizing it. The
darkness includes wasted chances or simply the lack of opportunity at all. The movies show the
youths a fairy tale of what life outside of Harlem and poverty could be like, but will likely never
be attainable for them. They are united in this dark fate but are also spiritually alone because they
know nothing can save them but themselves. The young people of Harlem live in a dark reality

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of which they know no hope. They bound by resentments against unmet expectations and lost
dreams. The narrator begins to understand how trapped these boys are, some of which his
students, and how easy it will be for them to repeat the cycle of drugs and crime that engulfs
Harlem.
Sonny is aware of the darkness which engulfs him unlike his brother and the young boys.
This sets the stage for a spiritual journey the brothers begin to embark on together. They both are
fighting for the same internal salvation from the darkness, and both offer each other exactly what
the other is missing. In a letter written to his brother from jail, Sonny says he feels, "like a man
who's been trying to climb up out of some deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the sun up
there outside," (78). "I got to get outside," he says. Sonny is searching for the light of truth,
hope, and salvation, and he is aware that finding it may be painful but he must seek light out
nonetheless. Sonny's brother describes him as, "an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light
(79). Baldwin's understanding of the return from drug addiction, depression, and despair is
clearly illustrated here. He shows Sonny's want and need to leave the darkness, but hesitancy to
experience the withdrawal and grieving process of leaving his comfortable pain. Sonny needs
love and compassion from his brother to help him step into the light, and the narrator needs
Sonnys courage and willingness to face his demons and proceed into the light as well.
The most telling passage in the story is told while the narrator recounts Sunday
afternoons and evenings with his family as a child:
In a moment somebody will get up and turn on the lightAnd when the light fills
the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens

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he is moved just a little closer to that darkness outside. The darkness outside is
what the old folks have come from, what they endure. The child knows they won't
talk anymore because if he knows too much about what's happened to them, he'll
know too much about what's going to happen to him. (82)
The darkness is all encompassing. It is both fearful and soothing, so much so that the
child does not want to leave it. Baldwin is able to convey to his audience the comfort found in
those deepening hours, and the comfort Sonny may have found while using heroin and hiding in
the darkness, or the comfort the narrator found in failing to confront the death of his daughter. He
weaves through the tale a string of silence, as darkness is personified as a slow and gentle relief
from daily life. It is a sleep from reality that their father, the narrator, Sonny, and the young
children of Harlem use to cope with pain. This is the first time Baldwin's theme gains some real
clarity. The salvation, or light, these characters seek will come in the recognition of the
darkness, an awareness and consciousness of the reality of darkness.
Sonnys relief from this struggle of pain and darkness comes through his jazz music.
When the narrator finally confronts Sonnys life as a musician and agrees to see him perform, he
challenges this darkness. Baldwin uses the motif of light and dark in the club the most in sensory
details. He walks down a "short, dark street," into a big room where, "the lights were very dim
and we couldn't see," the narrator says. "Heads in the darkness turned towards us," and he meets
the friends of Sonny's of which he has so long been terrified (96-97). The complexity of this
scene and the life Sonny choose induces a deeper respect for what darkness has, the truth the lies
within it, and the possibility of light and salvation that can come from it.

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Through the movements of the jazz musicians, Baldwin draws the reader in slowly. For
the narrator, to embrace the truth, to gain conscious awareness too quickly is too painful. As
Sonny ventures into his music and his brother observes, they each separately but together share a
moment of self realization. Sonny learns to swim through the dark waters towards the light with
the final encouragement of his brother. The narrator learns of the inseparability of light and dark
in the club, and how he must recognize and accept both as apart of his world. The darkness in
both men is confronted in reality, and in the awareness of this darkness comes the light of
salvation, making the darkness worthwhile.
Baldwin relates in Sonnys Blues the story of two brothers dealing with the harsh
realities of their lives and the views each of them holds. Both men are surrounded by a world of
shadow as well as light. The narrator must have compassion and empathy for his brothers
struggle with drug addiction, while Sonny himself must recover. Baldwin establishes the
symbolic motif of light and darkness to illustrate the complexity and similarities of the brothers
world. They are on opposite sides of the same problem and the solution is the same for both.
Darkness, representing the cold reality, and the light is the realization of this darkness that
springs to hope of seeing it through.

Works Cited

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Mays, Kelly J. "Sonny's Blues." The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W. Norton,
2006. 73-101. Print.