Sonny's Blues
... that you don’ know. But you are going to find out. You got to hold on to your brother,” she said, “and don’t let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil Munoz you gets with him.”... “You may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you’s there,”(47,48,49). Keeping in mind what his mother said to him that day, the narrator found a place for Sonny to live in while he was away in the army as well as when he got out of jail for using and dealing heroine. The narrator and Sonny had many hard times in their lives that they couldn’t understand one another’s pain, creating communication problems. Sonny dealt with his problems by playing his music and the narrator thought that he was being unrealistic with his dream of playing music. Throughout the story, it seemed that Sonny was constantly battling the odds, trying to ascertain a level of success that the narrator had. More than anything, Sonny was trying to find himself, or find his place in the world. In the beginning of the story, the reader starts to see the problem unfold, as the narrator says, “I wondered what he looked like now. He had been picked up, the evening before, in a raid on an apartment downtown, for peddling and using heroin,” (40). Even though he had the newspaper in his hands, he was in denial, saying : I couldn’t believe it... I hadn’t wanted to know. I had my suspicions, but didn’t name them, I kept putting them away. I told myself that Sonny was wild but he wasn’t crazy. I didn’t want to believe that I’d ever see my brother going down, coming to nothing, all that light in his face gone out, in the condition I’d already seen so many others,(40). The reader sees that the narrator does not have any compassion for his brother for Munoz he doesn’t write or see him until his own daughter passes away. Sonny then wrote back and let him know that he needed him. There after, they kept in constant touch, and reunited after Sonny served his time. The reader begins to see the narrator’s spiritual and emotional growth towards the end of the story when he goes to a club to see Sonny play. The narrator states: “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help...