The 1920's were an era of jazz, drugs, and booze. Many youths were caught in the embellished lifestyle that these societal sins promised, yet disappointed in its inability to fill their emptiness. The theme of "Sonny's Blues", by James Baldwin, is the emotional darkness that fills the narrators family not only from Sonny's drug use, but also from the unfortunate events that plague the family. Baldwin uses strong imagery to depict the darkness in the family's lives.

Baldwin consistently uses images of shadows to show the despair the narrator is in over Sonny's ruin. The narrator "[does not] want to believe that [he would] ever see [Sonny] going down, coming to nothing, all that light in his face [going] out, in the condition [he has] already see so many others" (Baldwin 42). It is hard for him to see his brother, someone who he had played...