“Sonny’s Blues” is a fascinating story about drug
addiction. The story opens with the narrator’s feeling of ice in his own veins as he
reads about Sonny’s arrest for possession of heroin. Sonny’s friend is also an addict
and is looking for money from the narrator for his next fix. In the scene before the
brothers go to Greenwich Village to hear Sonny play, Sonny says that he needs drugs to
be able to stand “it.” Suffering is seen as a cause of drug addiction, though the theme
of suffering is also tied to the loss of Grace, the narrator’s daughter. The narrator
himself does not fall into drug addiction but certainly comes to a clearer understanding
of Sonny and others who are addicted. The story also has strong generational ties.
Sonny, as he points out in his letter to the narrator, wishes he could have the faith
his mother had. After she tells the story of the father’s brother’s death on that long,
dark road in the past, she says, “I praise my Redeemer.” Without faith, there seems to
be left only music or drugs. Readers have also suggested that the older brother may be
addicted to his feeling of superiority or possibly an addiction to his status as one who
is better than his younger brother.
Though, at the very
end, the brothers do reconcile and knowing his younger brother's addiction, the older
brother still buys him an alcoholic drink at the end of the story, not because he
doesn't understand the effects of drugs and alcohol, but he has an awareness of
accepting his brother for who he really is.
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