Suffering In Sonny's Blues

James Baldwin wrote, “This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life the order which is art.” He does create art out of the disorder of life in his short story “Sonny’s Blues.” The stories main themes are suffering, racism, and artistic expression. The suffering of Sonny who was addicted to drugs, and feels like his brother does not understand him. The suffering of black people in America because of racism, and how creating art is an outlet to take anguish and turn it into magnificence. “Sonny moved, deep within, exactly like somebody in torment.”
Sonny is trying to find his path, his place in life; this is reflected in the way that he plays the blues.
“And Sonny hadn’t been near a piano for over a year. And he wasn’t on much better terms with his life,…He and the piano stammered, started one way, got scared stopped; started another way panicked, marked time, started again; then seemed to have found a direction, panicked again, and got stuck.” …show more content…
“And the face I saw on Sonny I’d never seen before. Everything had been burned out of it, and, at the same time, things usually hidden were being burned in, by the fire and the fury of the battle which was occurring in him up