Throughout “Sonny’s Blues”, we see that the narrator has had a hard time relating to and understanding his brother, Sonny. He mentions escaping Harlem, as many people seem to do the same when regarding their hometown. He believes they both escaped Harlem, but his escape was a positive one while Sonny’s was negative. It seems as though he holds some resentment towards Sonny for choosing the path he did and places the blame solely on Sonny. When Sonny’s friend is introduced, we get the sense that the narrator wants to leave his past behind due to some level of shame. He does not want to remember what it was like living in his old neighborhood and looks down on people who didn’t achieve better for themselves. His sentiments are reminiscent of the old saying “Don’t forget where you came from”. The narrator wants to forget where he came from because he associates people like Sonny and Sonny’s friend with where he comes from. After Sonny gets out of jail, the narrator is able to finally understand his brother or at least seems open to trying. There is a difference in the way Sonny and his brother deal with difficult situations. Also, the fact that the narrator was away in the army for some time while Sonny was left at home to deal with emotions that came with negative occurrences, such as their mother’s passing, created a separation between them where the narrator was unable to empathize with Sonny and accept his way of life. It seems as though the narrator was able to tuck his emotions away while Sonny constantly felt every one of his. In the final scene, Sonny is completely in his element as a musician. He is recognized as talented by everyone at the venue and this may have helped the narrator understand Sonny and why being a musician was so important to him. Sonny needed a way to express his feelings and was able to do so in a room full of people who supported him more than his own family did. After getting mixed up in street life, drugs and incarceration, Sonny was still able to fulfill his life’s dream of playing the blues while providing himself a therapeutic outlet. Sonny’s performance was significant in that it was him showing his brother that he was going to be okay in this life and did not plan on giving up what he had attained. The narrator’s reaction shows he understood just that, and maybe he did not need to worry about his brother as much as he thought he did.

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