Note: There’s a video at the end of the blogpost. If you don’t end up reading the post, you should still check out the video. I thought it was powerful both as a way of “defending” Sonny and also as a way of challenging the norms of Uni.
It was mentioned in class that the narrator, Sonny’s brother, could potentially come off as smug, especially in the first half of the story. I’ll go through why he comes off like that and then I’ll try and defend him after that.
The narrator is educated African-American male who is an algebra teacher. He has a wife and two sons and he reads about his brother’s legal altercations for heroin usage in the newspaper. When he runs into Sonny’s friend that day on his way home and is asked what he’s going to do. The narrator responds by saying “Look. I haven’t seen Sonny for over a year, I’m not sure I’m going to do anything” (106). He follows by asking what he even can do at this point. Later in that conversation, Sonny’s friend is telling the narrator that Sonny is going to be sent to rehab but “that’s all” (107). The narrator acts like he’s confused and unfamiliar with the situation, when in reality he know’s exactly what they’re talking bout. Sonny’s friend even says, “that’s right, how we he know what I mean” (108). To make matters worse, the narrator doesn’t even contact Sonny immediately, instead choosing to wait a long time before writing to him. So maybe the narrator is smug and just thinks that he’s better than the boys around him.
Or maybe there’s something more? When reading this story, one of the lines that stuck out most to me was when Sonny says “everybody tries not to [suffer]. You’re just hung up on the way some people try- it’s not your way” (133). I immediately connected that to Sonny’s drug use. Drugs are his way of escaping and feeling good, even if just temporarily. So then what was the narrator's way of avoiding suffering? I think the answer lies in the fact that the narrator didn’t contact Sonny until after his daughter died. In fact, it was through his own suffering that he was finally able to understand Sonny’s. The narrator portrays the classic case of if-I-don’t-address-it-it-doesn’t-exist. He chooses to avoid his suffering and distract himself with work or just try and forget. Both of his parents have passed and it almost seems like he wants to make them proud and show him how far he’s come (especially his mom). He’s gotten married, had kids, got an education, started a career, etc but he’s not necessarily smug about it. Maybe he doesn’t want to diminish all that he’s accomplished with the hardships and things that have gone wrong so he just tries to ignore them. Granted, in the process of proclaiming “Mama I made it,” the narrator has forgotten the one thing his mother asked of him- to hold onto his brother and let him know that he’s there for him. But there seems to be an argument for a non-smug narrator.
I see both sides and I’m kind of torn. What do you think? Do you give the narrator the benefit of the doubt? Or is he just a smug, “I’m better than this” kind of guy?
And for the video I promised… it’s not related to my blogpost really but I came across it recently and our class discussion reminded me of it. Sonny wants to be a musician, specifically a jazz musician, at a time where that wasn’t a respectable career. It wasn’t the traditional, safe thing to do, and we see in the story that he faces a lot of opposition from the narrator for his choice. If Sonny was a character today, I could definitely see him making a video like this.
