Consider the differences between the narrator and his brother Sonny.

The unnamed narrator, Sonny's brother, represents one of the "two sides of the African-American experience" ("Sonny's Blues" 16). An algebra schoolteacher and dedicated husband and father, the narrator attempts to integrate himself into white society by becoming "respectable" (Ognibene 16). As a result he is disconnected from his heritage and culture. He has distanced himself from the elements of the African American experience that are dark or unsettling.

The titular character of the short story, Sonny represents the other side of the African American experience. Struggling with drugs and depression, Sonny sinks down into the Harlem underworld, but finds meaning in a uniquely African American form of artistic expression: jazz. Through jazz, and particularly through the technically complex and abstract stylings of bebop, Sonny is able to both find himself and develop a connection to his heritage.