Caroline Burlingham
Mr. H. Salsich
English
September 22, 2008

Noted in Music
An analysis of an essay on Sonny’s Blues

More often than not, it takes people a while to understand each other. Sometimes, if that person is related to you, you don’t want to believe what you think you understand. In Sonny’s case, it was music that helped him through these times. Susie Bernstein Goldmen talks about the messages that music can give in the story Sonny’s Blues.

Goldmen starts off the essay talking about the relationship between Sonny and his brother, the narrator. She thinks that when his brother sees in the newspaper that Sonny has been arrested, that this fact will bring the two brothers closer together. Goldmen also points out that it is the narrator that first wrote the letter and started the communication. Thus is the point in which the two brothers reentered each others lives. The author of this essay also compares Sonny to his uncle. His uncle died accidentally, and the boy’s mother did not want this to happen to Sonny. Just when the two are beginning to get along, the narrator doesn’t believe in that his brother should play jazz music, and stops supporting him. This paper ends talking about the good and the bad times, and how they all come and go.

I strongly agree with this essay and its unfathomable topics. First of all, Goldmen brought up the fact that when their communication was at its peek, the narrator looked down on Sonny and his jazz music instead of encouraging him, but he did, “Promise is to buy [and listen to] Charlie Parker's records.” From then on, the two brothers did nothing but fight. I also agree with Goldmen when she states that, “The narrator realizes that their music saves them, for it "seemed to soothe a poison out of them.'' because it was music that brought them together. When Sonny plays for his brother, the music sends out the messages and emotions that were kept inside him. Goldmen wrote this essay with her heart and soul, because when it comes to music, those are what honestly count.

In the end of the story, Sonny probably realized that music helped him through the good and bad times. In even worse times, making music might have done the trick. The story of two different brothers was well written in this paper. I found that Goldmen represented music in the exact way Baldwin intended for it to be.

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Suzy Bernstein Goldman. “James Baldwin's 'Sonny's Blues': A Message in Music”. in Negro American Literature Forum, Vol. 8, no. 3, Fall, 1974, pp. 231-3.