— Anonymous
I consider James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” to be a great work. This story conveys a message and gets people to rethink their lives and how we treat others as well as family. The underlying message in this short story is also relatable to us in 2020 and will be relevant to us in the future because we always have some sort of conflicts with our family. This story really gets you thinking about your family and how families divide in the heat of some arguments. However, with this Baldwin knows that family is always family, that no matter what being blood related means that they will always be there for each other. Like in the story, in the end Sonny’s brother realizes how important Sonny is to him, that they are family no matter what, and wants to be there for him. At the same time, this story shows that even without blood related family, we can also choose our own family. Sonny ends up finding his family at the club, a family based on shared interest in playing jazz. Because this story has two messages, I think it makes it a great work. It really gets me thinking about how families operate and how there can be disagreements amongst one another and how that affects how things turn out. After reading this story, it made me realize that no matter where we go, we will always have a family. Our family does not only have to be our blood related families, but we could also choose our families, we do not have to just be limited to who we are blood related to. At the same time, this story challenges us to think about how we choose to handle family issues and disagreements, in a heated moment do we side with the way Sonny’s brother dealt with things or do we take a deep breath and pause to think about how we are going to act. But also, this story touches upon our hopes and dreams, with Sonny, he chose to follow his dream knowing that it means ruining his relationship with his brother. So, in that sense it also explores how we choose our dreams. I think this story is relatable to our lives today and will be relatable to our lives forever, because in our society now, there are some families who disapprove of certain careers.
This short story is a great work because it makes a reread this story over and over, realizing that there are small details that makes the story whole. The detail of the disapproval of Sonny’s choice in career, him finding his own chosen family, and Sonny’s brother realizing that family is family, all of these details come to light after re reading the story more than once. This story is also timeless, no matter what happens in the world, this story will always be relatable to people. This story causes people to rethink their actions and words said to family members during the heat of an argument, makes people reevaluate life, do you support your family’s decision, or do you break your relationship with them. This story makes us pose a lot of questions about families, family decisions and who you consider who’s part of your family.
