Grant Smith

Wilson

English 123-2895

February 20, 2017

Quick and Painful

In traditional literature, the event of death is used as a critical juncture within a story. We

are to spend time with the dying when they know there time has come and characters are to

constantly remind us that they have not forgotten the death. These moments have weight and are

there to make to us cry in empathy with those who have passed on. This tradition explains why

in James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues”, the brisk nature with which he addresses each

of the deaths takes the reader aback. Stranger still is the depth that Baldwin goes into to show the

reader how each of the deaths, that he just moments ago treated as if they were a footnote, is

affecting the people around the deceased despite the characters almost never mentioning the

deaths once they have occurred. This provides a certain unease throughout the story that Baldwin

uses to emphasize a point. After all, how can we as readers not wonder why the author would

treat his characters so coldly. Baldwin writes each death to be brief and quickly marches past

them to create contrast with the survivors long and complex to reactions to the deaths. Baldwin

desires to use this contrast to bring greater attention to how death impacts those left behind.

The deaths of the narrator and Sonny reveal how death can drive people apart. The

father’s death is simply described as “He died suddenly, during a drunken weekend in the middle

of the war, when Sonny was fifteen”(74). The mother dies shortly after herself with the only

mention of it being that the narrator was coming back to town for her funeral. The narrator and

Sonny’s long argument that follows the mother’s funeral displays how two people can be
separated by death. The narrator reacts to their parents death by attempting to become more

responsible and taking a deeper level of care into Sonny’s future. While one might expect that

this deeper care would bring the narrator closer to Sonny, it actually has the opposite effect. This

is because Sonny has reacted to their parents death by believing that he should become more of a

free spirit, pursuing music and quitting school. The impact of their deaths on Sonny can also be

seen in how Sonny ends up as a heroin addict afterwards to deal with his suffering: “It makes

you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. And distant. And-and sure…It makes you feel-

in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have that feeling” (86). Sonny’s addiction as well as his

division with his brother are rooted in the initial suffering of losing his parents and yet not only

does Baldwin briefly go over the deaths himself, he never has any characters mention the parents

in conversation once they’ve passed. The treatment of what would traditionally be a major plot

point in the parents death as little more than an afterthought serves to leave the reader reeling and

in search of the relevance as we continue to read wondering how Baldwin could move on so

quickly.

Baldwin uses the death of Grace, the daughter of the narrator, to show how death can also

have the opposite effect of bringing people together. In regards to the narrator and Sonny’s

reunion, James Takach determines that “the death of the narrator's daughter, Grace, prompts the

narrator to write to Sonny and then welcome his prodigal brother into his home after Sonny is

released from prison” (113). Going further, it is the news of Grace’s death that changes Sonny’s

mind about separating himself from his family and makes him want to reconnect with the family

that he told “that he was dead as far as I was concerned”(83). One should notice that the the lack

of communication was two-way between the brothers, neither of them making any known

attempts of contacting the other prior to Grace’s death. It can be seen how the Grace’s death has
changed the narrator’s viewpoint on the keeping family together when he is discussing suffering

with Sonny later on. Grace’s mother saw how she died, on the floor unable to breath so much as

to even get a scream out until she could and that sound still haunts her mother, adding

significance to the narrator’s feelings on suffering when he talks to Sonny: “I don’t give a damn

what other people do, I don’t even care how they suffer. I just care how you suffer” (87). After

understanding the pain his wife went through watching their daughter suffer before death, the

narrator now desires to better understand the suffering of Sonny especially due to his fear that

Sonny may soon die from his heroin addiction. All of this is given more of a spotlight because

the reader is left wondering what impact Grace’s death will have as it seems unlikely that it was

included for reason despite the brevity with which it was brought up.

Lastly, the uncles death, which has the most content of any of those in the story, allows

reflection on how death impacted past actions and to comparison to current reactions. What’s

unique about the uncle’s death in the story is that it is the one with the most detail of any in the

story. The mother describes to the narrator not only how he died-being hit by a car in the night

with the father watching- but also somewhat goes into how he lived, talking about he and the

father’s Saturday night fun: “…him and your father would drift around to different places, go to

dances and thing like that, or just sit around with people they knew, and your father’s brother

would sing” (76). The relevance of this difference is that despite the relatively long period spent

describing the uncle’s life and the events around his death, there is still surprisingly little time

devoted to the actual moment of his death. Only a couple of lines are used once the uncle is

actually hit by the car, the rest being used to describe what he and the father were doing prior

that night as well as what the men driving the car were doing. Prior to this was a lengthy

description of how the narrator viewed his father growing up, allowing us to reflect on this
singular event that happened in an instant may have shaped how the father interacted with his

children later on in life. The death of uncle affects the narrator in some similar ways as it did his

father. The first fight between the narrator and Sonny that we know of occurs immediately after

the mothers funeral-her death not long after she told the narrator about his uncle-when the argue

about Sonny becoming a musician: “I simply couldn’t see why on earth he’d want to spend his

time hanging around nightclubs, clowning around bandstands, while people pushed each other

around a dance floor” (79). The narrators hesitation about Sonny’s desires make more sense

when considering he had just recently heard about his uncle dying while living a similar lifestyle.

The father also didn’t get along well with Sonny, telling us that both he and the narrator may

have realized that Sonny was too alike to his uncle and wanted to change his direction in life but

were unable to do communicate it properly. The fact that the narrator could have his outlook on

Sonny changed so dramatically just from hearing story about the death of the uncle he never met

provides the greatest contrast between death and reaction while also have perhaps the deepest

connections in the story.

Baldwin’s style when writing about death can be jarring at first, but when looked at

closely it provides greater insight into what he may consider important when discussing death:

How it impacts those around the deceased. This intent is fitting for Baldwin due to the fact that

he was raised religious before denouncing it later in life which leads to the logical conclusion

that he may not believe in heaven. If there is no heaven, why should we waste time addressing

the deceased, they are gone. This sentiment is somewhat reflected in the real world in the belief

that funerals are not for the departed and rather for the attendees to obtain closure. We should

focus on the people still here and still and pain, and those who have passed away are no longer in

pain. Perhaps even those of us that are religious can take this message to heart and at least ask
others how they are dealing with the passing of a loved one and focus less on we are doing so.

After all, even the narrator learned that he should care someone else’s suffering every once in a

while.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Portable 12th

Ed. Alison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton 2016. 66-93

Tackach, James. "The Biblical Foundation of James Baldwin's "Sonny's

Blues." Renascence, vol. 59, no. 2, Winter 2007, pp. 109-18