3. Socio-historical setting of Sonny's Blues and characterization of brothers within that context.
a. Growing Up in Harlem:
"Sonny's Blues" takes place during the mid-20th century, probably during the early 1950s. The action of the story occurs prior to the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement, during the dark days of segregation and supposedly "separate but equal" accommodations in public institutions. The narrator and Sonny have grown up in predominately black and poor neighborhood of Harlem, the sons of a working-class, embittered father whose pride and optimism have been worn down by his own brother's violent death at the hands of rural Southern whites and the ensuing years of struggling to support a family in an overtly racist Northern urban community. The father has given up trying to move his family out of Harlem: "'Safe!' my father grunted, whenever Mama suggested trying to move to a neighborhood which might be safer for children. 'Safe, hell! Ain't no place safe for kids, nor nobody'". As the brothers reach adulthood and the narrator begins his own family, their material circumstances haven't changed much; though the narrator is not impoverished himself and enjoys the comfortable trappings of middle class life, he and his family remain in impoverished surroundings, probably due to the de facto segregation of the safer, suburban and largely white communities they might have been able to afford.
The narrator is teaching algebra to boys very much like he and Sonny had been, full of potential but threatened by the drugs and violence of the urban ghetto, their futures limited by segregation and discrimination. The narrator describes the boys he teaches, to whom he likens Sonny and himself as boys, in the following way:
“They were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone”.
Although he doesn't approve, the narrator begins to understand how such a child can go wrong, or can become addicted to drugs. He suspects some of his own students to "be popping off needles every time they went to the head," and surmises that "maybe it did more for them than algebra could". The narrator is aware, then, that in spite of his own success at attaining the valued middle class lifestyle, most of his students wouldn't be so lucky.
b. Military Service
The brothers' military service plays an important role in the socio-historical context of the story. The narrator refers to being "home on leave from the army" during the war; he remarks that his father "died suddenly, during a drunken weekend in the middle of the war, when Sonny was fifteen" and he informs the reader that both he and Sonny served in the military. It is important to notice and understand these references to the military service of the brothers.
Beginning after their liberation from slavery, black men had tried to prove their patriotism and to improve their standard of living by serving in the U.S. military. Hoping that service to their country would prove them worthy of the same respect and opportunities accorded to whites, black men readily enlisted in the military.
The characters in "Sonny's Blues" reflect this tendency: as a teenager, Sonny yearns to enlist in the army or navy because it would take him away from the "killing streets" of Harlem and give him the opportunity to get a college education on the GI Bill. That enlistment in the Army during a war might seem safer or more sane than remaining at home is part of the cruel irony of this family's urban experience. The narrator, too, has struggled in spite of his military service to his country to attain success and safety at home. He dutifully fought the war, returned to become an algebra teacher and a productive member of the middle class, and yet because of segregation and discrimination, his family must live in a new but already rundown housing project, "a parody of a good, clean, faceless life".
c. Jazz Music, Class Divisions and Racial Politics
In his article entitled "Baldwin, Bebop, and Sonny's Blues" (in Understanding Others: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Studies and the Teaching of Literature, eds. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1992, 165-176.), Pancho Savery concludes that the story most likely takes place during the Korean War rather than during World War II. Savery argues that the story's discussion of the 1950s jazz music scene illustrates a division in the black community represented by the brothers themselves. To understand Savery's argument, we first must understand some of the personality and philosophical differences between Sonny and his brother. The division within the black community can best be described as between those of middle class, like the narrator, who downplay the barriers to their success, who want to believe that they can improve their standard of living in the US, who feel confident that through hard work, determination and self-denial, they can make their world safe for their children, and who would readily assimilate into white society if given the chance.
The other group, Sonny's group, is more radical and less accepting of the status quo. They suspect that as blacks their struggles will always be fierce, and that, unless drastic social change were to occur, they will always be shut out from the privileges most whites enjoy.
This
opposition can be seen mainly in several conversations between the
brothers. First, when the 
younger
narrator confronts the teenaged Sonny about his plans for the future,
Sonny avers that he would like to become a musician. Seeing this
career goal as an impractical and therefore dangerous choice, the
narrator says, "Well, Sonny, you know people can't always do
exactly what they want
to do--." This quotation sums up the narrator's personality: he
is cautious, responsible, willing to deny himself the things he might
want so that he can maintain his foothold as a middle class family
man. He's also afraid for Sonny, afraid that Sonny will fail or,
because he doesn't understand them, that Sonny's goals are not lofty
enough. Sonny responds with "No, I don't know that.
I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they
alive for?," indicating his unwillingness to subordinate his
dreams and goals to someone else's standard of success.
In another conversation, which takes place during the present day time frame of the story as the brothers watch an emotionally arresting street singer, Sonny says "it struck me all of a sudden how much suffering she must have had to go through -- to sing like that. It's repulsive to think you have to suffer that much". Sonny here shows the sensitivity and perception of the artist that he is; clearly, he feels other people's pain acutely and in thinking about it deeply, is transformed such that he gains an insight into an art form and how it is produced. The brother responds in a practical, almost dismissive way by saying, "But there's no way not to suffer--is there, Sonny?" The narrator has essentially missed Sonny's point (Sonny seems to have realized long ago that there's no way not to suffer).
Sonny's response -- "I believe not, but that's never stopped anyone from trying, has it?" -- shows what he understands about art, music and even drug use that his brother has not yet understood. Their conversation here mirrors the early conversation the narrator has with Sonny's friend by the subway. The anguished narrator is only beginning to comprehend Sonny's drug use, his bohemian lifestyle and the risks he takes to express his true self. He says to Sonny's friend "Tell me, why does he want to die? He must want to die, he's killing himself, why does he want to die?" The friend, surprised by the narrator's lack of understanding, responds with "He don't want to die. He wants to live. Don't nobody want to die, ever". What Sonny and his friend understand, which the narrator misses throughout most of the story, is that living by another man's definition of success or, worse, being hemmed in by a discrimination that deprives one of true freedom, is like being dead. Music, art, and even drugs are avenues out of that social death, even as they are, in their own ways, dangerous or subversive.
Looking at yet another conversation between the brothers, critic Pancho Savery (in his essay "Baldwin, Bebop and Sonny's Blues") notices the way in which Baldwin uses jazz music as an analogy for the way the brothers don't really understand each other and for the distinction between those who would give up a great deal of independence and personal satisfaction to stay safe and those who would risk everything to express themselves and to claim their rights. As the narrator and Sonny discuss Sonny's career plans, the narrator asks Sonny if he wants to be a jazz musician "like Louis Armstrong." Sonny's reaction is almost violent: "No, I'm not talking about none of that old-time down home crap." It turns out that Sonny admires a newer, edgier kind of jazz music, one not yet accepted by mainstream culture, a fresh sound exemplified by the music of Charlie Parker. This new jazz, also called Bebop, had revolutionized music by 1952 (Savery 167), but traditionalists like Sonny's brother, who don't place a high value on art, music or African American culture, might not have heard of Charlie Parker. Bebop fans in the early 50s were looking for a replacement for, in Sonny's words, "that old-time down home crap" that Louis Armstrong had pioneered and that white artists like Benny Goodman had subsequently popularized among mainstream white audiences.