Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin Question #1

Myra Khan

9-18-2014

EN 102 –C6A/6C

Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin

1.  Francis "had not developed his memory as a sentimental faculty."  Why is memory important in this story?  What kinds of memories do people try to ignore and what kinds of memories actually do surface in the story?

            In the story Francis’s memory was very important because it showed his emotions while thinking about Sonny. The last time they were together was over a year ago, and he didn’t see Sonny as the type of person who would do drugs. With that image of Sonny in Francis’s head, he probably didn’t want to meet with him; just to see his brother completely different from what he used to be. Reading the news about his brother made Francis go into denial, he told himself ‘Sonny was wild, but he wasn’t crazy… always been a good boy…he was never disrespectful’. Because Francis didn’t want to believe the news, so he never met with Sonny in prison.

But once Sonny was released, and they finally met with each other; Francis started to remember all the fun they had as kids. ‘Stores which we had stolen…rooftops from which we had hurled tin cans.’ Aside from good memories with his brother, Francis recalled his folks as well; when Francis was worried about Sonny he told himself he just wanted to know if Sonny was safe and done with his heroin addiction. He remembered their father always said ‘Ain’t no place safe for kids, nor nobody.’ Showing that he was right, even if Sonny was a good boy, he wasn’t safe from the outside world influencing him to try drugs. Francis also showed guilt, maybe because he felt like it was his fault Sonny got into drugs. The memory of his mama showed his guilt. When she was telling Francis about their father’s brother, Francis told his mama ‘…I won’t let nothing happen to Sonny’.  But something did happen to Sonny. 

People usually try to forget the bad memories, but usually the bad ones are the ones people remember; while good memories are sometimes hard to remember. I believe that a lot of the memories Francis had linked to his emotions, from happiness, denial and guilt. Since he never actually verbally spoke about his feelings, his memory did.