What Is The Internal Conflict In Sonny's Blues

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin Internal and External conflicts Sonny is a young boy from Harlem struggling with his addiction to heroin and is eventually sent to jail for it. The Narrator, Sonny’s older brother is a high school Algebra teacher who loses connection with Sonny and does not realize where Sonny is till he reads in the newspaper about Sonny being imprisoned. During Sonny’s journey to get back on his feet once he incurs internal and external conflicts along the way. The series of events leading to Sonny getting back into the real world is really a struggle for him. He tries to find out who he really is and what he should be doing with his life, however along the way it’s not as easy as he would like. With external forces trying to tell him what he should do, such as: His brother, his Mother, and his sister in law’s Mother. His older brother allows him to stay with him until he graduates from
One of the main ones would be his drug abuse and addiction to Heroin, which is what landed him in jail in the first place and made his life take the course that it did. Him wanting to find himself also had a great influence on the decisions that he made along the way, such as: Getting lost in his addiction, going to College, hanging out at Greenwich Village to hang out with musicians, and going to the Navy. Lastly, a final internal conflict with Sonny is his love for playing Jazz music on the piano. This is what drives him the most and realizes it’s what makes him tick and motivated. Practicing countless hours at a time and joining a band at the Village shows how dedicated he was to his dream. Sonny didn’t allow others to make the decision on what he was going to do in the end and just followed his heart because it was what he loved. At Greenwich Village Sonny was a respected musician and many knew him, ultimately it is where he belonged all