The point of view from which a story is told allows the author to illustrate events, usually through someone else's eyes. A major participant in the story tells "Sonny's Blues" in the first person perspective. In fact, the unnamed narrator is as important to the story as the title character, Sonny. The style of narration that most closely represents this story is internal monologue. The story illustrates an older brother's struggle to understand his baby brother, for whom he feels responsible, but has very little in common with. .
By telling the story from the older brother's point of view, Baldwin is able to make the reader feel the emotions the brother feels and understand them only as he comes to understand them. At the beginning of "Sonny's Blues," we know very little about Sonny. We soon learn that he has gotten in trouble for using and selling heroin and that the narrator has a hard time dealing with it. The narrator continues describing how the news makes him feel, saying, "A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long" (40). He uses a flashback to make readers understand what has happened in the past, including the promise he made to his mother before she died. She says to him, "You may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you's there" (49). Readers also learn what events led to Sonny and his brother losing contact. There's a strained relationship between Sonny and his father until his father dies. Soon after their mother dies, leaving the narrator to play a big brother role he has never played before. The narrator leaves his brother with his wife's family while he is off at war and Sonny runs off to be a jazz musician. The big brother's attempt to reconcile fails, and he feels like he has failed Sonny completely. Through his narration, the reader can feel his desperation to reach Sonny, and Sonny's wish that his brother could understand and support him.
