Heroin Addiction In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

This painkiller is an opioid and it works by imitating endorphins, the natural painkillers in the body, which block pain signals to the brain. As per the Drug Enforcement Agency in America, it is 50 times as potent as heroin.

In James Baldwin short story "Sony's Blue" he uses music to represent Sonny's struggle with his addiction to heroin. Throughout the story, music was present whenever Sonny's addiction was mentioned. When Sonny first told his brother that he wanted to play jazz music for a living he mentioned that Charlie Parker was one of his inspirations, this is interesting because Charlie Parker was a drug addict who died from his addiction. This also seemed like it took place around the time that Sonny started abusing drugs with the goal of completely focusing on playing the piano. At the end of the story, Sonny talked to his brother about how he felt while he was taking heroin.

In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin utilizes heroin addiction to exemplify the societal stereotypes surrounding drug addiction. Set in Harlem in the 1950’s, an unnamed narrator and his brother, Sonny, experience the consequences of growing up in an impoverished neighborhood, eventually separated by their differing coping mechanisms. The author introduces the characters in their adult lives after one brother entangles himself into the lifestyle that accompanies heroin. By contrasting the narrator’s prosperity with Sonny’s misfortune, Baldwin illustrates his view on the inescapable cycle of drugs and poverty.

Heroin is made from a poppy plants. Chinese may be an influence on psychosocial factors for heroin use. Some of the popular street names for heroin are: big H, H, junk, skag, horse, smack, thunder, hell dust, nose drops. The short-term effects of heroin will appear a little after one dose and disappear in a few hours. Effects of heroin overdose will include the following: slow and shallow breathing, hypotension, muscle spasms, seizures, coma, and possible death.

Sonny was free-spirited, adventurous, and artistic. The narrator (Sonny’s brother) implies that Sonny and his brother grew up in Harlem, a less than impressive section of New York. It is obvious that Sonny aspires to leave Harlem; his reason being that he is not learning anything in school and he was unhappy with the environment he was living in (453). Sonny was not inherently a bad person; he only wanted more for his life than simply going to school and living in an unremarkable neighborhood. It was as if something was missing in his life

Jonathan Armstead ENGL 364 6380 September 27, 2015 Essay 2 In this paper I will be supporting an argument about how the short story “Sonny's Blues” by James Baldwin paints a theme in the reader's mind about how people used different ways to escape life in the ghetto. It is obvious that Sonny uses music and drugs as his escape from a hard life, while his brother tries to “assimilate” into society by becoming a middle-class worker in education. Even though this story has a lot of themes and symbolism, I chose this theme because I can easily relate to it in this present age where drugs are still a major problem in this country and there are many people who share Sonny's escape from a hard life. My argument is how the short

In the short story ¨Sonny's Blues¨, the intimidating power of drugs is embodied as the main antagonist. The Harlem Rennisease jump started the epidemic of heroin and it took advantage of the substandard community. As a result many families have been affected and torn apart due to this issue. Throughout generations, the epidemic of drug addiction has strongly impacted troubled African Americans within their community. He struggled with his mental health and drug addiction and took what he thought was the easy way out.

Underlying Causes: The increase in the sale of opioids is considered to be the root of the opioid crisis, as the drugs have been proven to be highly addictive. An addiction to prescriptive opioids, however, can lead to an addiction to synthetic, illegal opioids, such as heroine or fentanyl, which are less expensive and easier to acquire. In fact, in their journal article, “Associations of nonmedical pain reliever use and initiation of heroin use in the United States” Pradip Muhuri and associates discovered that “the recent (12 months preceding interview) heroin incidence rate was 19 times higher among those who reported prior nonmedical prescription pain reliever (NMPR) use than among those who did not (0.39 vs. 0.02 percent)” (Muhuri et. al). In other words, abusing prescription opioids significantly raises the chances of abusing illicit drugs, such as heroin.

Nathalie Diaz’s poems “How to Go to Dinner with a Brother on Drug” and “ My Brother at 3 A.M” point out how drug and alcohol abuse cause stress and problems over a family. Diaz explains the struggle that her family has to be through because of her brother addiction. Diaz’s poems show her life and the struggle she needs to experience such as drug addiction, violence, and poverty. The brother addiction to the Meth causes the family fall in part.

Cathedral”, written by Raymond Carver is a short story that emphasized the use of drugs. “Sonny’s Blues”, written by James Baldwin is a short story that devalued the use of drugs. Without the drugs in “Cathedral”, the narrator and Robert would have never been able to communicate, the picture would have never been drawn, and the narrator would have never understood the blind man. However, in “Sonny’s Blues”, Sonny does not need drugs to communicate, to play the piano, and to understand who he is. Carver and Baldwin explore the use of drugs differently in regard to personal communication, artistic expression, and self actualization.

Sonny's Blues was written in 1957, 37 years after the roaring twenties had come to an end. Long after the great Migration, where millions of blacks moved to northern cities to escape Jim Crow, and embrace the new found possibilities offered. During this period African-Americans in New York, collectively gathered in Harlem mainly, it was usually alluded to as the black capital. There blacks shared culturally and also, influenced music greatly. This is also where the "new negro" persona was crafted, blacks were no longer going to be referred to as someone's mammies or boy.

Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin was a short story about the struggles of living in a tough, rundown neighborhood and looking to drugs as a way out. Baldwin’s intent on writing this piece focuses on pain and suffering. The author stresses that not everybody is born in the best circumstances. Sonny was one of those people who grew up in a rickety town where people often did not make it out successful.

“[H]er voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes — when it’s in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. It makes you feel — in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have that feeling” (142). James Baldwin was a popular African-American novelist and essayist whose themes include human suffering, race/racism, social identity, sexuality and numerous others.

Trying to control suffering by the numbing of senses and emotions with drugs, only leads to the entrapment of oneself in the suffering. Through jazz music, in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” we see that drugs are tied to, and amplify the unavoidable suffering that takes control and is woven into their lives. The “it” in “it can come again” is not only the drug addiction, but the ways in which addiction “can” bring “again” the reminders of past and present sufferings, without a solution to a “way not to suffer.” We see this in Sonny, who struggles with challenges of being a minority, the death of his mother, and conflict with his brother and step family, and resorting to his heroin addiction to deal with his pain. He is eventually able to deal

“The Handsomest Drowned Man in The World,” “The Metamorphosis” and “The Blues” are short stories that share a common theme which would be society’s pressure and influence on the humane experience. The stories share the same theme which is conflict discovered through various situations. In the Metamorphosis, Gregor faces difficult situations in his life due to his transformation into an enormous insect. The series of unfortunate events in Gregor’s life brings about a conflict in regards to his failure to secure a position within a family dynamic. In the Handsomest drowned man in the world, the discovery of Esteban, brings about conflict of jealousy and self-worth created by societies focus on appearance.