Sonny's Blues

A short summery of Sonny blue's...Sonny’s Blues was one of those stories that was difficult for me to read through.  There was a lot of dialogue and emotion in the story.  The story starts out with the narrator reading in the paper that his brother had just been arrested for selling heroin. The narrator is a teacher at a school in Harlem. When he is at school, all he can think about are the boys who do not have bright futures and will probably get addicted to drugs at some point in their life. After school, he meets a friend of Sonny’s on the subway. He was grown up, but he was still out on the streets. I didn’t think the story gave a very good description of what Sonny looked like. It just says that his hair is dirty and that he smells “funky.”  At first during their conversation, the narrator seems as if he were going to judge him for where Sonny’s friend was at in life, being hooked on drugs. As they were talking, the narrator began to think back to the last time he saw his brother. It had been a year. The thought crossed his mind that he could have been the cause for Sonny’s addiction.  Later in the story it is found out that Sonny is not going to school. Instead, he is going over to hang with   his jazz friends, probably to do drugs. Once Isabel’s parents find this out, Sonny leaves their house, drops out of school, and joins the navy.  Towards the end of the story, the narrator and Sonny go to a jazz club.  Sonny completely blows the narrator away by his talent. It was cool to read about the connection that was made between these two characters.  It shows that even someone in the deepest pit can be pulled out if they have a hand to grab.