Sonny’s Blues
Literature is a broad and competitive field which requires an author to be unique to attract an audience. Authors hence aim at using various literary devices such as themes, setting, imagery, and symbolism to achieve an edge in storytelling. These tools help them to best express their ideas, highlight essential concepts and capture the audience’s attention. James Baldwin is among the numerous authors that have used these fictional elements in painting his stories, making them captivating. Sonny’s Blues is among this stories that revolve around the life of the narrator and his brother Sonny, who is arrested and later released for using and peddling heroin. The narrator, a high school maths teacher, did not have a close relationship with Sonny; hence he heard of Sonny’s arrest in the news. The death of the narrator’s daughter, however, forced him to contact his brother, Sonny, who comes to stay with them as he figures out his life. During this stay, Sonny changes his behaviour and returns to his music career; he further explained to the narrator why he used heroin.
An important fictional element utilized by Baldwin in telling this story is the illustration of various themes. Fictional stories in as much as they entertain, they mirror current societal issues through the themes. In Sonny’s Blues, the dominant themes were drug and alcohol, suffering and family relationships. Baldwin brought out the central theme, drug and alcohol addiction through narrating how Sonny’s use of heroin affected his life, family and music career. Baldwin moreover displayed how individuals can escape drug addiction since the narrator assisted Sonny to regain his life back.
Another fictional element used in this story is the use of Tone setting. A tone is a tool used by authors to express their attitude towards the characters. In this story, Baldwin used a sympathetic tone for the most of the story. Tony sympathizes with Sonny, which is illustrated by how he paints the character; he tries to illustrate the root cause of his addiction instead of painting him as a useless drug addict. For instance, the narrator advises Sonny that “It’s not so much to play. It’s to stand it, to be able to make it at all. On any level (201).” The narrator was advising Sonny that coming out of the addiction was the most important achievement. This tone illustrates that they were sympathetic to what Sonny was going through and was hopeful that he would overcome it someday.
Another important element used in this story is symbolism. Authors use symbolism to bring out an idea in a captivating way. In this story, Ice, Jazz music and Light are used symbolically to illustrate various elements. The ice, for instance, has been used in the story to illustrate fear and shock. When the narrator heard about his brother’s arrest, he described the feeling as a block of ice that had settled in his belly and slowly kept on melting (). This incident symbolizes how shocked he was that his brother had been arrested.
Literature elements are vital in any storytelling as they present the author’s ideas in a non-conventional way. A story exclusive of these tools will be boring thus less received. It is therefore, significant for authors to employ these tools in their storytelling.