In “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin explores the lingering psychological effects of racism on Black individuals through the relationship between two brothers, the unnamed narrator and his younger brother Sonny. Baldwin, who lived from 1924 to 1987, was one of the most prominent and esteemed American authors of his time. His varied literary output explored American society, particularly the experiences of Black individuals. Some of Baldwin’s most famous works were personal essays, such as 1955’s “Notes of a Native Son,” which drew upon his experience as a gay Black man to analyze the centrality of racism in Jim Crow America.

The two central characters of “Sonny’s Blues”—the narrator and Sonny—are both Black men who grew up in Harlem in the 1920s and ’30s. As children, they are born into a life of poverty and strife wrought by systemic racism. The narrator never directly refers to racism but uses the motif of “darkness” to symbolize the racism and poverty that he and his community endure. At the start of the story, the narrator observes his Harlem classroom of young boys and contemplates “the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them” (18).