The Bible and Suffering’s Relation to Music in “sonny’s Blues”

The Bible and Suffering’s Relation to Music in “Sonny’s Blues”

James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” includes many motifs. However, three of these motifs really stand out to me: Biblical allusions, suffering, and music. The following two literary criticisms further elaborate on these three motifs. “The biblical foundation of James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’” by James Tackach elaborates on the biblical aspects of this short story. “Troubled reading: ‘Sonny’s Blues’” by Eva Kowalska shows the suffering and musical emphasis in this short story.

Two main biblical texts form the foundation of Baldwin’s story: the Cain and Abel story from the Book of Genesis and the parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke. Baldwin most likely had extensive knowledge of these two Bible stories considering that the King James Bible was his favorite book to read during his childhood in Harlem, New York. Baldwin grew up listening to sermons in churches, reading the bible, and living in fear of his stepfather who was also a minister. “Sonny’s Blues” is a contemporary retelling of the parable of the Prodigal Son. “Sonny’s Blues” and the Prodigal Son parable both feature two brothers, an older brother who has remained on the straight and narrow path and a younger brother who has engaged in riotous living. The narrator, Sonny’s older brother, stopped contacting Sonny for a while because he disliked Sonny’s friends and disapproved of his lifestyle. Like the younger brother in the Prodigal Son parable, Sonny is lost. Sonny’s older brother, like his self-righteous counterpart in the New Testament, has little sympathy or concern for his incontrovertible brother’s situation. Like the parable of the Prodigal Son, “Sonny’s Blues” is a tale of sin and redemption.

The narrator’s daughter’s name, Grace, is highly symbolic. When the narrator loses Grace, he simultaneously identifies with the darkness in Sonny’s life, which leads to his realizing his own loss of grace. This loss of grace results from the broken promise that he made to his mother. By neglecting his younger brother, the narrator has become a modern Cain. In Genesis, after Cain kills his younger brother Abel, God asks Cain about Abel’s whereabouts. After the narrator engages the street kid in conversation, the boy asks the narrator what he will do about Sonny, and the narrator’s response echoes the response, in Genesis, that Cain gave to God when He asked Cain about Abel’s whereabouts.

Genesis is often referred to as “The Fall,” and Baldwin’s reliance on that biblical text is evident in the many prominent places where Baldwin uses the verb “to fall” in “Sonny’s Blues.” The narrator has a duty as an older brother to keep his younger brother from falling. Grace’s fall reminds the narrator of both Sonny’s fall and his own fall from grace for ignoring the promise that he made to his mother not to let Sonny fall. Unlike the Cain of Genesis, the narrator of “Sonny’s Blues” has the possibility of redemption. Like the sinners in the book of Isaiah, Sonny has sinned by drinking from the