This paper would discuss and evaluate the significance of perspective in the telling of a story. It would consider how the story would have changed dramatically if it were told from the perspective of a different narrator. Would it be the same story? How are perspective and plot-related? How might descriptions of places and characters be influenced by a particular narrator’s perspective and the attitudes he holds? “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin is a story that deals with very real aspects of society and is done so through the use of symbolism and imagery. The story is craftily written, using lightness and darkness as symbols throughout the entire story. Baldwin focuses “Sonny’s Blues” on the character of Sonny who is continuously struggling to find what makes him happy. Ultimately, Sonny finds two escapes, one of them being fatal: drug abuse and music. Baldwin opens the story at the school where Sonny’s older brother (the speaker) works as a teacher. He reflects on what happened to his brother as he watches the boys in the schoolyard. “…here I was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, everyone of them for all I knew, be popping off needles every time they went to the head. Maybe it did more for them than algebra could…These boys, now were living as we’d been living then, 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 types of darkness, 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” (Baldwin, p. 110). This quote describes not only how unaware the speaker felt about the youth abusing drugs, but also describes their lives using the term darkness. Darkness symbolizes all of the hardships that the boys are faced with which is masked by the movies and media making life look easy. The term darkness has a negative connotation and gives the reader a sense that this word symbolizes something depressing or troubling. Throughout the entire story, the terms lightness and darkness are used as symbols to describe several occurrences. Additionally, Baldwin creates strong imagery in different instances throughout the story. For example, the speaker, Sonny’s brother says: “A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long…It was a special kind of ice. It kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down my veins, but it never got less. Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream. This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done” (Baldwin, p. 109). Visually, the author creates vivid images for the reader to see as they are reading the story. This instance could be interpreted as a reference to Sonny’s use of heroin. The speaker describes feeling this way when thinking about past things Sonny had done, and perhaps the sp