Sonny's Blues

happened, and why characters acted the way they do.

The exposition of the "Sonny's Blues" starts when the narrator introduces characters,

scene, and situation of the story. The narrator learns from a newspaper that his younger

brother, Sonny, has been arrested "for peddling and using heroin." (Baldwin 83) The

narrator is a high school teacher, and his wife is Isabel. Leaving the school, the

narrator comes across an old friend of Sonny's in the schoolyard. They talk about Sonny's

arrest and tell each other some their fears. The friend says that he "can't much help old

Sonny no more." This angers the narrator because it reminds him that he himself had give

up trying to help his brother and not even seen Sonny in a year.

However, he keeps in touch with Sonny again after his daughter dies. It is also the

moment the narrator begins to wonder about Sonny again. The scene ends the exposition,

and opens the story's rising action part.

The story continues as the narrator meets Sonny after Sonny get out of prison. As Sonny's

request, they take a long cab ride and recall their memories that they had experienced in

"vivid, killing streets" in their childhood. Next, we hear the conversation between the

narrator and his mother about his father and the death of his father's brother. The

mother's story makes the narrator realize how important he and his brother are to each

other and how he, as the older, needs to let Sonny know "he is there" for Sonny. The

narrator experiences a feeling of guilt, as he has not done as his mother asked, but he

also remembers that Sonny's choice of being a jazz musician "seemed beneath him, some

how."