Light transforms, destroys, and elevates experiences and thoughts in "Sonny's Blues," by James Baldwin. Sonny and his brother, the narrator, grew up in the "dark" atmosphere of Harlem, its residential neighborhoods and decaying, drug-filled streets. The process of growing up, losing parents, and living amidst light and darkness have shaped both the narrator and Sonny. Baldwin uses light, and its opposite, darkness, to present the challenges and hopes of the protagonists' adulthood and childhood. If there is one phrase that sums up the point Baldwin conveys through these images, it is: “All that hate and misery and love. It's a miracle he doesn't blow up the avenue” (p. 639). Through Sonny and his brother, we can see that light and darkness can be united, like hate and love. Light and darkness reflect fundamental human experience; they are primordial aspects of the world that have always been at odds, but in this story Baldwin brings them together. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The narrator's childhood in Harlem was an experience that influenced him to become a teacher and gave Sonny the desire to get as far away from his hometown as possible; this can be seen through the use of light and dark. In the first song, everything that surrounds the boys as they grow up is darkness. Their lives lead only in darkness. The films are a literal darkness that helps them escape their lives for a few hours, but ultimately makes the literal darkness of life in Harlem even deeper. These same visions of life in Harlem echoed in the Narrator's childhood: "And when the light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness... moves a little closer to the darkness outside... what they talked about the old" (p. 623). Through the passage, and this quote, we see that the general opinion is that light - like the films mentioned in the first passage - does nothing but delude the child, distancing him from the harsh reality that will be his life, that the "old" they have already experienced. In response to this, the narrator tries to mentally distance himself from his environment by becoming a math teacher, getting married, and even isolating his brother for a few years. He believes that if he ignores his insides, he can escape the darkness; but instead, it introduces more darkness. Sonny scares the narrator because he oscillates between “bright and open” (p. 613) and “all the light in his face…gone” (p. 614). Sonny is connected to his lights and his darkness through drugs and then through music; these are both parts of Sonny's life that the narrator cannot understand or accept for most of the story. The narrator's vision of light and darkness culminates in the second passage, and after that point. It is an epiphany for the narrator and for Sonny. The narrator fears for Sonny, for his “dying flame,” that his inner fire will take over and burn him, as it almost did with his heroin addiction. He comes to understand that light and darkness coexist in the real world, with different disadvantages and advantages, just as they both exist within Sonny. The narrator begins by being completely petrified of the light, and when Sonny and his fellow musicians step into the light, it is as if a barrier is broken in his mind that allows the narrator to finally understand. He finally saw Sonny happy and saw him smile. He saw Sonny as a god, a creator of his own world. Despite all the darkness Sonny has within himself, and in his past, he is able to embrace the light and not be afraid. Sonny was “so moved he could have cried” at this moment and “put himself there.