SOURCE: "The Fear and the Fury," in James Baldwin, Twayne Publishers, 1978, pp. 31-49.

In the following excerpt, Pratt discusses the ways in which Sonny is portrayed as the older and wiser of the brothers in "Sonny's Blues."

The life of the black man in America today is replete with crucial crises on a day-to-day basis. His very existence is threatened by the inner conflict between the satisfaction of his basic needs and the nameless, paralyzing, and insurmountable fears—conscious and unconscious—which grow out of the experience of being black in a white-oriented society. These fears result in the imploding of the personality and render him incapable of coping effectively with the situations of life. In turn, the implosion gives rise to explosion, the sudden release of black fury from which white society has sought to cushion itself through the most brutal and savage means possible. It is...