“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, Research Paper Example

In the short story “Sonny’s Blues,” author James Baldwin presents characters that are struggling both with internal and external conflicts. In some ways, their conflicts with other people and the world around them are both internal and external at the same time, as they try to sort out their relationships with other people, and how they feel about those relationships. At the heart of the story is the conflict between two brothers who have not seen each other for a long time, as they took very different paths in life.

As the story begins, the narrator is seen dealing with the news that someone he knows (Sonny) has been arrested for possession of heroin. The reader understands that Sonny is dealing with a serious problem, one that could lead to him ending up in jail. The narrator soon runs into an old acquaintance of Sonny’s, who tells the narrator that Sonny will probably be sent way for treatment. “They’ll let him out,” he tells the narrator,” and then it’ll just start all over again,” meaning that Sonny’s heroin addiction is a conflict that will not be easy to overcome.

Even though the narrator knows that Sonny is in trouble, he does not make an effort to contact him right away. It is not until the narrator’s daughter dies that he writes to Sonny, and it is not until then that the reader realizes that the narrator and Sonny are brothers. That is a major conflict, and one that is as much of a struggle for Sonny as hiss drug addiction. In the end, Sony’s ability to play music provides a way for the narrator to finally understand his brother, and the reader is left with the idea that the two brothers may have finally resolved their differences and overcome at least one of their shared conflicts.