How do Sylvia, Dee, and Sonny overcome difficulties in social settings in "Sonny's blues"?

James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" is definitely about
overcoming difficulties in social settings, in this case, for
Sonny.

The narrator of the story, Sonny's brother, has been
able through hard work and struggle to find a place in the world. He is a teacher and
able to provide for himself and his family. However, Sonny has not been able to do so.
He has never found a comfortable fit in society. He has done drugs and dealt them, and
has just been sentenced to jail as the story opens, for dealing heroin. Taking care of
Sonny has become an impossible task for the brother: he doesn't know what to do for him
any more. This is a bitter pill for the narrator to
swallow.

The narrator runs into an old friend of Sonny's,
another drug user, and they discuss Sonny's arrest. Sonny's "friend"
notes:

…ain't
nothing you can do. Can't much help old Sonny no more, I
guess.

This might well
represent a certain portion of society that believes that the problem is well beyond
what anyone can do to fix it, and instead, they turn
away.

The friend notes addicts don't really want to die,
but that using makes them feel good. He paints a sad picture for Sonny's future: that
once he gets to jail, they'll try to cure him. Once he gets out,
he'll start using again. Again, the friend may represent society's sense of helplessness
in trying to deal with the problems of illegal drugs and those who cannot find a
"cure."

The one glimmer of hope comes from Sonny's
association with musicians, and how music speaks to Sonny. In fact, it transports him,
almost like a drug, but to a good place where few, except perhaps
other musicians, can truly follow. In this setting, the narrator can see the beauty in
his brother's soul, and perhaps that moment of realization represents those in society
who have not given up on people whose lives are ravaged by
drugs.

readability="13.84030418251">

They all gathered around Sonny and
Sonny played. Every now and again one of them seemed to say, amen. Sonny's fingers
filled the air with life, his life...And Sonny went all the way back, he really began
with the spare flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make
it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a title="lament"
href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lament">lament…Freedom lurked
around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would
listen, that he would never be free until wed
did.

In this passage, the
narrator seems to say that society can help if we only continue to care and to listen to
the cry for help that the addict offers. The drug does not define the person, nor does
its use. There is hope for each "victim" of drug abuse. And if we stop listening, all is
lost.

Note:  "lament" - an expression of grief
or sorrow