Sonny's Blues Suffering Quotes
How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. (5)
Suffering comes in many forms. The boys in Harlem know that they have little chance of ever "making something" of themselves. They suffer from the limits that their circumstances have constrained them with.
Quote #2
It was not the joyous laughter which – God knows why – one associates with children. It was mocking and insular, its intent was to denigrate. It was disenchanted, and in this, also lay the authority of their curses. (6)
Laughter as an expression of suffering, you might ask? Absolutely. This is the angry laughter of young men who are already hardened against the world.
Quote #3
A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. . . . Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream. (12)
People don't always outwardly express their anguish. The narrator's suffering is immense (it threatens to overpower him here), but he can't just fall apart. Perhaps his suffering is made even greater because this great, big block of ice just stays where it is. He can't get it out of his system.
Quote #4
When she smiled one saw the little girl, one sensed the doomed, still-struggling woman beneath the battered face of the semi-whore. (26)
Bear with us on this one, but this is almost a hopeful image of suffering. Underneath this woman's beaten face the narrator can still see a glimmer of the innocent child she once was. Even her suffering hasn't completely covered that up.
Quote #5
"Tell me," I said at last, "why does he want to die? He must want to die, he's killing himself, why does he want to die?" (38)
The narrator is making a desperate plea with this unanswerable question. He can't imagine anyone doing what Sonny has done to himself unless he no longer has the will to live. He just wants to know "why?" His suffering is as great as Sonny's here.
Quote #6
All at once something inside gave and threatened to come pouring out of me. I didn't hate him any more. I felt that in another moment I'd start crying like a child. (42)
The narrator is referring to Sonny's old friend, who is also an addict. His suffering turns to compassion here. He no longer hates this man who reminds him of his addict brother. Instead, he can barely contain the grief he feels for him and Sonny. He wants so badly to just let it out, but he won't.
Quote #7
You don't know how much I needed to hear from you. I wanted to write you many a time but I dug how much I must have hurt you and so I didn't write. But now I feel like a man who's been trying to climb out of some deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the sun up there, outside. I got to get outside. (49)
Sonny suffers on multiple levels. He suffers from his drug addiction and from being stuck in jail. But he also suffers from the knowledge that he's hurt his family and that, because of this, he didn't dare reach out to them even when he needed to the most.
Quote #8
The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure. The child knows they won't talk any more because if he knows too much about what's happened to them, he'll know too much too soon, about what's going to happen to him. (82)
Here we see how suffering can pass down from one generation to the next. The parents want to protect the children for as long as they can, but they know that suffering will be an inevitable part of their lives. But for now, the children can remain blissfully ignorant of what's looming ahead.
Quote #9
I said: "But there's no way not to suffer – is there, Sonny?" (206)
The narrator is resigned to suffering. He's just accepted it as part of the human condition.
Quote #10
"I believe not," he said and smiled, "but that's never stopped anyone from trying." He looked at me. "Has it?" (207)
In some ways, Sonny may agree with the narrator that there is no way around suffering. But he doesn't just passively accept this; he'll keep doing whatever he can to stave it off, even if he knows deep down that this might be futile.