In many literary works, if not most, the narrator of the story sets the tone from the beginning of what the mood will be throughout the story. For example, in works such as "The Long Way Home", it was depicted from early in the story that the main character wasn't your typical woman and the rest of the narrative went on to explain such. Even the most popular book in the world, the Bible, informs of the structure of the reading with the first words in the text. This same theory falls true for the short story "Sonny's Blues" written by James Baldwin. Baldwin introduces the story with the narrator being informed of negative news regarding the supporting character, which as explained earlier sets the reader up for the image that will be portrayed of him throughout the rest of the short story.
             The short story "Sonny's Blues" is narrated by a character that remains unnamed throughout the entire story. The only reference of him to signify his importance to the main character is that they are brothers. As detailed earlier, the short story begins with the narrator being informed of something extremely negative, that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested recently for a drug related crime. As one would expect, this sends him into somewhat of a depressive state with him describing it as a "great block of ice" in his stomach that won't go away. Upon the narrator reaching his classroom, he starts to look at the faces of his students and think back to the times when Sonny was a child with a "bright and open" face and devoid from the trials and tribulations of the world. This opens up the views that the narrator has about his younger brother Sonny. The thoughts of him being his innocent little brother are long gone; he is now starting to be viewed as a grown man who is stuck in his ways, ways that he totally disagrees with.
             As the story progresses, after the narrator's ...