On the first page of 'Sonny's Blues,' the narrator describes the icy feeling he gets when he reads the news about Sonny. In this way, Baldwin suggests the power of music to take away, even temporarily, the suffering of man. Thus, Baldwin elevates music to a spiritual, almost supernatural force capable of momentarily relieving the suffering of those who truly experience it.

The narrator says of the drink, 'For me, then, as they began to play again, it glowed and shook above my brother’s head like the very cup of trembling.' The cup of trembling is an Old Testament reference to a moment in which God relieves the faithful of their suffering, saying, 'Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury thou shalt no more drink it again' (Isaiah 51:22). Sonny takes a sip and places the drink up on top of the piano. The cup of trembling (Symbol)Īt the end of 'Sonny's Blues,' the narrator buys his brother a drink and sends it up to him between sets. The timidity with which John regards the boot mirrors his relationship with Gabriel on the one hand, Gabriel provides him with a roof, food, and clothes, the securities of a guardian on the other hand, John lives perpetually in Gabriel's debt for these provisions because, unlike the other children in the household, John isn't Gabriel's biological son. The first story in the collection, 'The Rockpile,' concludes with John kneeling down to pick up his father Gabriel's lunch pale, 'bending his dark head near the toe of his father’s heavy shoe.' Gabriel's large boot symbolizes that which is powerful enough to offer protection, while at the same time, with the same power, threatens to do harm. In this way, the rockpile figures religiously into Roy's worldview as something that both preserves life and brings forth the dead. Richard's father carries his lifeless body down their street to their home, and Baldwin describes Roy and John watching 'the small procession within the house which stood beside the rockpile.' Thus, the rockpile is associated with absorbing the dead, much like an afterlife or deity. The explanation his Aunt Florence offers for the rockpile's existence is that 'without it the subway cars underground would fly apart, killing all the people,' thus attributing to the rockpile a godlike role in protecting and maintaining the lives of 'all the people.' The symbolic significance of the rockpile is reinforced when one of the neighborhood boys, Richard, drowns in the river. It looms large, especially in Roy's mind, as a manifestation of the supernatural. The titular 'rockpile' of the first story in the collection symbolizes a religious force of nature, full of mystery and consequence.

Spark notes the rockpile james baldwin