Harlem
Please answer three (3) of the following questions:
1. The story focuses on two characters, Sonny and his (unnamed) brother; the unnamed brother tells the story. What is each brother like? How are they different? What do they have in common? Which brother do you sympathize with more? Why?
2. Harlem is a powerful presence in the story. Describe how this world has positively and negatively shaped each brother. Is it a more hospitable world than the South their parents knew?
3. Light and darkness are woven together throughout the story. They begin with the narrator’s awareness of the “darknesses” that fill his students as they rage against “the low ceiling of their actual possibilities” and end in the final paragraph, with the glow of the drink in the darkness. Trace the images of light and darkness throughout the story, paying special attention to the racial implications of these images.
4. Music is key to this story, particularly jazz. What does music express for the people of Harlem? For Sonny? For the narrator at different points in the story? Why is the story called “Sonny’s Blues” when the music Sonny plays is jazz?
Sample Solution
Harlem
Sonny`s Blues is a 1957 short story written by James Baldwin. The narrator, Sonny`s older brother, compared to Sonny and many of the young men in Harlem, is a success, working as a math teacher and raising a family. However, he also feels trapped in Harlem, where he has lived his entire life. He knows he has an obligation to Sonny, but it takes him a while to get over his skepticism and devote himself in helping Sonny as best he can. Sonny, the narrator`s younger brother, is a troubled young man who becomes addicted to heroin at an early age. Unlike many of the young boys in the neighborhood, Sonny is not hard or brutal. He keeps all of his problems bottled up, except when he plays music. The characters are trapped both physically and emotionally. Throughout the story, the narrator and Sonny are constantly struggling to break free from one barrier or another.
