"sonny's blues" begins in medias res. what does james baldwin achieve by beginning the story as he does? how does the order in which events are related later in the story affect your experience of reading it and interpreting its meaning?

1.       A good way to consider why authors begin their texts the way they do is to compare and contrast the ending. Let us remember that this excellent story opens with the discovery of the narrator concerning his brother’s arrest for drugs and selling heroin. Nevertheless, is the way that this encounter makes the narrator feel trapped and bounded by darkness. The rest of the story tells us, in a non-chronological order, the gradual journey of the narrator and his brother towards wholeness and unity once again. The reason why the story begins as it does to show the growth in understanding of the narrator and how he comes to appreciate and learn from his brother and the music that is so important to him.

2.       Balwin intends for the reader to experience Sonny’s troubles, the narrator’s struggles to understand his brother and the moment in which the two brothers come together. The attached link on writing style suggests that the end of the story provide a catharsis in which Sonny is relieved from the pressure of his life by playing his music. The story moves around in time, and sometimes readers might feel lost in the time shifts. This is symbolic of the trouble that has plagued Sonny’s life and of the difficulty that the narrator had trying to understand the choices that his brother has made in life. But these events come together in the end when the narrator understands how music has saved and shaped his brother’s life.

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