Several passages found throughout "Sonny's Blues" indicate that as a whole, the neighborhood of Harlem is in the turmoil of a battle between good and evil. The narrator describes Sonny's close encounters with the evil manifested in drugs and crime, as well as his assertive attempts at distancing himself from the darker side. The streets and communities of Harlem are described as being a harsh environment which claims the lives of many who have struggled against the constant enticement of emotional escape through drugs, and financial escape through crime. Sonny's parents, just like the others in Harlem, have attempted to distance their children from the dark sides of their community, but inevitably, they are all aware that one day each child will face a decisionb for the first time. Each child will eventually join the ranks of all the other members of society fighting a war against evil at the personal level so cleanly brought to life by James Baldwin. Amongst all the chaos, the reader is introduced to Sonny's special secret weapon against the pressures of life: Jazz. Baldwin presents jazz as being a two-edged sword capable of expressing emotions like no other method, but also a presenting grave danger to each individual who bears it. Throughout the the story, the reader follows Sonny's past and present skirmishes with evil, his triumphs, and his defeats. By using metaphorical factors such as drugs and jazz in a war-symbolizing setting, Baldwin has put the focus of good and evil to work at the heart of "Sonny's Blues."

At several points in the story, Baldwin emphasizes the quickness at which Harlem residents fall to the pull of evil. The children of Harlem are described as often turning "hard or evil or disrespectful, the way kids can, so quick, so quick, especially in Harlem" (Baldwin, 71). These children can be compared directly to soldiers in a war. Thoughts of uniform packs and gruff speech come to mind; even the shadow-filled courtyard through which teachers pass "quickly, as though he or she couldn't wait to get out" (72) can be imagined as a setting of a quiet war in progress. The students are all at risk for the same fate which befell Sonny's uncle. The hit-and-run incident which killed him was one of the expected casualties of the war unfolding around Sonny. Everyone knows an individual could fall at any given moment, but as was described in the livingroom scene remembered from many years ago, the hardships are not openly spoken of. Therein lies the critical error of insufficient emotional expression, which will be described later by the section dealing with jazz. As it pertains to the war scene, the lack of emotional expression is also demonstrated when Sonny's brother glimpses a barmaid going about her life at work. Sonny's brother, also the narrator of the story, watches "her face as she laughingly responded to something someone said to her, still keeping time to the music. When she smiled one saw the little girl, one sensed the doomed, still-struggling woman beneath the battered face of the semi-whore" (73). Primarily, the term "doomed" stands out most strongly. Viewed through different glasses, she could just as easily be a young soldier, lost in a land of terror, attempting to live up to the strength of a mature fighter. Both of these examples demonstrate how Baldwin portrays Harlem as a war-torn community. These people were unwittingly drafted the day they were born. As schoolchildren they're already out on the battlefield dodging drugs, alcohol, and crime involvement. As previously mentioned, Sonny has crafted a personal weapon for him to use out on the battlefield of the Harlem streets.

The jazz, which Sonny has begun using to his advantage, is not at all a safe weapon to hold. Due to drug use, the jazz crowd is explained as being a very unstable one. Sonny states that they use drugs such as heroin "In order to keep from shaking to pieces" (89). The concerned voice of the narrator responds, "But these friends of yours...they seem to shake themselves to pieces pretty goddamn fast" (89). The drugs themselves are portrayed as a gray zone between good an evil. On one hand, they are being used by the jazz musicians to help expand their music and broaden their ability to express emotions through it. On the other hand, those same drugs have claimed the lives of many players who took one step too far into the grey-zone and fell prey to the aggressively addictive tendencies of heroin. This classic case of 'playing with fire' does an exquisitely good job at deepening the conflict. On page 89, Sonny ponders the heroin-using jazz players he has interracted with:

'Some guys, you can tell from the way they play, they on something all the time. And you can see that, well, it makes something real for them. But of course, ' he picked up his beer from the floor and sipped it and put the can down again, 'They want to, too, you've got to see that. Even some of them that say they don't -- some, not all.'

Sonny's close understanding of these observations gives the reader an intimate sense of the darkness lurking close behind the drug use. Each of the musicians yearn for the light at the end of the tunnel, "something real", but they all understand how close it brings them to destruction. Similarly to this phenomenon, Baldwin also puts symbolism to work in another aspect of the jazz scene.

In the very last section of the story, another musician, Creole, turns Sonny's life around by coaxing him into "deep water". A whole year after Sonny's last piano experience, he is to play at a local club in a small but very talented group of jazz musicians. Up until this point in the plot, Sonny's future direction is entirely unclear. The reader has not been given any indication of whether or not he is leaning back towards the heroin which ruined him a year ago, or whether he has the strength to resist a relapse. Creole, the lead fiddler, is in artistical control of the group, and as the story unfolds, he symbolically takes Sonny by the hand and leads him out into the open. This openness, represented by a metaphorical ocean, is the key to the artistic expression which Sonny requires to begin regaining control over his life. Literally described, Creole wishes for "Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water" (93). When at last Sonny is nudged out into the open, Creole wishes him Godspeed and allows Sonny to musically weave the tale of his past: "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life" (94). This high plateau of expression is the untainted counterpart to the effects of heroin. This is the major turning point in the story: the point at which Sonny triumphs over the dark side and finally finds a firm grip among the freedom-fighting soldiers of Harlem.

All three of these symbolical details are woven together in "Sonny's Blues" to create a non-literal meaning directly beneath the words. The end result is an enriched message about urban struggles for expression, happiness, and chemical independance. Ultimately, Sonny's revival concludes the readers' literary tour of world in which he lives. What is begun with a presentation of hardships is finally concluded with Sonny's triumph, a chance at a better future.