Influence Plot has on Character - "Sonny's Blues" -James Baldwin
...tanding, communication and insight into each other’s lives. The story begins just after the narrator learns that Sonny has gone to jail for drug use and trafficking. From the narrators discussion with an old friend of his brothers,’ it becomes clear that he is bitter and resentful of Sonny’s’ choices. Nor does he seem surprised of Sonny’s actions. He became complacent, choosing not to acknowledge the pain and suffering his brother felt. The narrator of the story was not able to understand or sympathize with Sonny’s suffering, until he endures the pain of losing his own daughter. "I think I might have written Sonny the very day that little Grace was buried. I was sitting in the living room in the dark, by myself, and I suddenly thought of Sonny. My trouble made his real" (paragraph 174). This suggests that the narrator is beginning to acknowledge the reality of Sonny’s experience. He has gained greater understanding of the importance of ending his silence with Sonny. Sonny is very sensitive to the pain that occurs in his life. As a jazz musician, he takes the misery surrounding him and turns it into something creative and deals with it the only way he knows how – through music. Isabel's mother learns that Sonny is gone, and "that he'd been down in Greenwich Village, with musicians and other characters in a white girl's apartment" (paragraph 169), she becomes scared for him. Sonny posed as an inconvenience in their home, although, Isabel’s mother “denies it to this day.” It is evident to Sonny that he was not appreciated nor understood. His music and desire to conceive something creative, were always going unnoticed, this upset him. So angered, that he flees and enlists in the Army. At an earlier age, the narrator was not able to understand the perspective of his brother. To him, Sonny’s life seemed very different then his own. He convinced himself that because he had taken the right path, he had not allowed for hardship to occur. He blinded himself from his own misfortunes and the tragedies of others. The narrator’s mother asked him to look out for Sonny. She told him the story of how his uncle was killed and the effect it had on the narrator’s father. It was very important to her. He assured his mother that he would always look out for Sonny. Two days later he was married and the promise he made to his mother seemed to be ignored. Showing that the narrator tended to take things for granted and that he tends not to want to look at a prob...