How does the narrator make it possible for the reader to understand Sonny more sympathetically than he is able?James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"

James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" is a story with
musicality.  For with the narrative beginning in media res, the
past and future are brought together with great poignancy; and, with these interludes of
flashbacks, there are compressed tensions.  This use of flashbacks by Baldwin allows the
both the reader and the narrator to perceive how his "trouble made his [Sonny's] real." 
In addition, it also allows the reader to understand that Sonny is really the darker
side of the narrator, and thus be more sympathetic to
Sonny.

It is when the narrator remarks, "My trouble made
his real," that he begins to understand Sonny, his darker side. For, then he notices the
musical walk of Sonny--"I had never really noticed it before."  Yet, at the same time,
the narrator has held his preconceived ideas that he imposes upon Sonny in their
conversation after they watch the street singer and Sonny talks of his addiction and of
the addiction of others.

Finally, when the narrator
accompanies Sonny to the nightclub, he understands:  the tale of how we suffer is the
"only light we've got in all this darkness."  Sitting in the darkened corner, the
narrator has an enlightenment, realizing that he and Sonny are two parts; Sonny's music
frees if only there be a listener.

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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 we did.

As the listener
to both Sonny and the narrator, the reader comprehends, too, and achieves a sympathy
beyond that of the narrator.