Rocket Boys Essay
By: Alex Hinman
This essay will cover the family portion of the book rocket boys and will show how the
family and friends develope over the story. The characters that will be most seen is the Hickman
family. They are very crucial to the story and develop it further. The main thing of the story is of
course rockets and the Hickam family at first sees no use in such a thing. Since it is a coal
mining town everyone works in the mine as does Homer's father.
Firstly Homer Hickam Jr. and his father Homer Hickam Sr. start the story living their
normal lives and explains how the town has been at “War with Itself” for quite a long time. Then
moves towards the family as I said previously. Into the second chapter there
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the desire to start building his own rockets and of course he and his friends
first attempt at a working rocket failed and destroyed Sonny’s mothers fence. This in turn does
not upset his mother but she saw it as an opportunity for “sonny” to escape the town of coalwood
and learn something great.
Next we will here from a new character by the name of quentin he is often unliked
because of how intelligent he is. Quentin becomes sonny’s partner in crime so to speak and they
both work together to start learning about and developing their own rockets. Sonny’s father of
course does not like this kind of thing from his son. He wants him to grow up and work in the
mine as he does. He wishes he would drop the nonsense with rockets and be more realistic.
Sonny tries to bond with his dad by going to his workplace and looking around seeing what he
does in the mine. This brings them a little closer and it's make the father happy to have his son
there to see what he does. But sonny wants to keep on going with rocket building and learning
more and more. Sonny’s father does try to help his son and make him happy with supplying him
with supplies to build his own rocket range and cares for what he wants and hopes he is
The only thing I knew for sure was my mother did not see me going into the mine.”. ( Hickam 14 ) Elsie believes that Sonny is better than to go into the mines. She believes that he is too good and too smart for the mines. But, Homer Hickam Sr believes that he should go into the mines like he did. Elsie doesn’t give up and tries to do everything she can so Sonny can get the future he wants. Elsie believes in getting a better future and not wasting it on mining. She values education and becoming something. Sonny wants to build rockets so she will support his decision and help him with that. “You've got to get out of coal wood, Sonny,’ Mom said, ‘Jimmy will go. Football get him out. I'd like to see him a doctor, or a dentist, something like that. But football with him out of Coalwood, and then he can go and be anything he wants to be”. ( Hickam 50 ) Sonny’s mom knows that Coalwood withholds people from reaching their full potential. She believes that anywhere but Coalwood would be better for both of children to
In both "Sonny’s Blues" and "The Rich Brother", one of the two brothers encounters success through his life whereas the younger one does not follow the same path and constantly disappoints the other. Pete and Sonny’s brother unconditionally love their own brothers for numerous different reasons and they feel an obligation to the other. They believe that it is their duty to take care of Donald and Sonny, but at the same time they cannot or at least in the beginning understand what drives their brothers in life and moreover the reasons that push them to make the choices they are constantly making. Although Sonny’s bad decisions put him through a lot, he finally reinvents himself and proves to his brother his value. Unfortunately Donald does not evolve enough to meet his brother’s expectations. Both young brothers fail in their lives but for very different reasons. Sonny’s drugs addiction puts him to jail and Donald’s quest for the faith of his soul results in many issues with Pete. Nevertheless, Sonny’s brother sees and witnesses what his brother is really capable of, while sadly for Donald, Pete definitely cannot live with his brother’s way of living. "Sonny's Blues" and "The Rich Brother" are perfect examples of how brothers relationships are: full of love but paved with insurmountable obstacles at the same time. At the end of Sonny's story, both brothers can finally "see" each other and are able to live together, while unfortunately for Donald and Pete, it is impossible for them to reach an understanding.
Sonny has had to deal with many troubles in life, and he turns to drugs for release, but this is just another one of his problems. Sonny is not very old when his
The boys had to overcome hardships. From family issues to financial problems, the boys had to overcome many hard times. On page forty-three paragraph four and paragraph seven is where Joe Rantz is left by his family, “Thula wants you to stay here. We’re going to Seattle now. You can’t come with us this time.” “He was fifteen years old, and he was
According to his brother, who narrates "Sonny's Blues," Sonny was a bright-eyed young man full of gentleness and privacy. "When he was about as old as the boys in my classes his face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it; and he'd had wonderfully direct brown eyes, a great gentleness and privacy. I wondered what he looked like now" (Baldwin 272). Something happened to Sonny, as it did to most of the young people growing up in Harlem. His physical journey growing up in the streets caused a great deal of inner turmoil about whom he was and what kind of life he was to have. One thing for sure, by the time his mother died, Sonny was ready to get out of Harlem. " 'I ain't learning nothing in school,' he said. 'Even when I go.' He turned away from me and opened the window and threw his cigarette out into the narrow alley. I watched his back. 'At least, I ain't learning nothing you'd want me to learn.' He slammed the window so hard I thought the glass would fly out, and turned back to me. 'And I'm sick of the stink of these garbage cans!' " (Baldwin 285).
The second part serves to reveal the history of the narrator, Sonny and their parents, especially how those factors interact with Sonny and the narrator thus influence them in the future. Their father died when Sonny was fifteen. Although it seems that his father and Sonny has different personalities: his father seems very loud-talking while Sonny is quite most the time, they have the same privacy. And from the narrator’s mom talking we know that his uncle died of run over by some drunken white men driving a vehicle. This is also the reason why his father pretended to be looking big and tough, but actually was very weak in front of narrator’s mom. His mom also told the narrator to watch over Sonny. It can be inferred here that his mom doesn’t want Sonny to be hurt like his dad did. Thus the narrator gets the responsibility for Sonny and this becomes one factor causes the future plot. After their mom’s funeral the narrator and Sonny talks and tries to figure out what Sonny will do in the future. The answer from Sonny surprised the narrator very much — Sonny plans to become a jazz musician and play the piano, however, the narrator doesn’t understand and thinks it is a bad idea so they have an argument about this. From this point the relationship between Sonny and the narrator gets worse. At last they both make a compromise that Sonny will live with Isabel's parents who have a piano in their house. However, Isabel’s parents figure out that Sonny actually doesn’t go to school, instead, he goes to hang with his music friends. Then Sonny leaves hometown and goes to navy. Thus the relationship between them gets even worse and they don’t write to each other for a long time. The part two generally tells audience the details of the past which kind of clarifies the cause of the conflict between Sonny and the narrator — the latter doesn’t understand Sonny’s dream and
Conflict is opposition between two forces, and it may be external or internal,” (Barker). There are two styles of external conflict that can be examined within the plot of “Sonny’s Blues”. The first of these is character versus society. This is the outer layer of the external conflict observed between Sonny and the society, which his life is out casted from. The meat and potatoes of the external conflict however, is character versus character. Sonny lives a lifestyle that his brother seems to be incapable of understanding. The internal conflict lies within the narrator. It is his struggle to understand his brother that drives the plot. The climax occurs when Sonny and the narrator argue in the apartment. The argument stems from the narrators complete inability to understand Sonny’s drug usage and life as a musician, and Sonny’s feeling of abandonment and inability to make his brother understand him. This conflict appears to come to a resolve at the resolution as the narrator orders Sonny a drink following hearing Sonny perform for the first time. It appears as though this is the moment when the narrator begins to understand, perhaps for the first time, his brother the
Although, he did what he felt was right at the time. During the time of their mother dying, he was a newlywed and was also getting his career together in the army. After their mother’s death, the narrator was soon returning to his station, leaving Sonny stay with his wife, Isabel and her family. Sonny always had dreams of becoming a jazz musician, but because of the era they were in and being the older brother, the narrator wanted better for Sonny. Sonny was stuck on being a jazz musician and wasn’t letting anything stop him. The living arrangements he had with Isabel and her family wore thin,
He still buys him an alcoholic drink at the end of the story because, he has accepted his brother for who he really is. Harlem is the setting of this story and has been a center for drugs and alcohol abuse. The initial event in this story shows that Sonny is still caught in this world. Sonny says that he is only selling drugs to make money and claims that he is no longer using. In the story the brother begins to see that Sonny has his own problems, but tries to help the people around him by using music to comfort
As "Sonny's Blues" opens, the narrator tells of his discovery that his younger brother has been arrested for selling and using heroin. Both brothers grew up in Harlem, a neighborhood rife with poverty and despair. Though the narrator teaches school in Harlem, he distances himself emotionally from the people who live there and their struggles and is somewhat judgmental and superior. He loves his brother but is distanced from him as well and judgmental of his life and decisions. Though Sonny needs for his brother to understand what he is trying to communicate to him and why he makes the choices he makes, the narrator cannot or will not hear what Sonny is trying to convey. In distancing himself from the pain of upbringing and his surroundings, he has insulated himself from the ability to develop an understanding of his brother's motivations and instead, his disapproval of Sonny's choice to become a musician and his choices regarding the direction of his life in general is apparent. Before her death, his mother spoke with him regarding his responsibilities to Sonny, telling him, "You got to hold on to your brother...and don't let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you get with him...you may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you're there" (87) His unwillingness to really hear and understand what his brother is trying to tell him is an example of a character failing to act in good faith.
Feeling the regret and pain, the narrator does not know what to do with Sonny. Not only is he dealing with Sonny’s arrest, his daughter
The older brother, the narrator, finds himself struggling at the beginning of the story. While riding the subway, he reads in the paper that Sonny has been arrested for possession of drugs. During his day of teaching, he reflects on prior years with Sonny and their past adventures as young boys. He remembers Sonny's "wonderfully direct brown eyes, and great gentleness and privacy." The narrator sees his brother as a good boy, not "hard or evil or disrespectful." He wonders how many of his algebra students are similar to Sonny in appearance and personality along with his drug habits. This comparison allows the older brother to conclude that Sonny was probably not arrested on his initial use of drugs. It also allows the narrator is see that Sonny may be like most of the other young boys in Harlem.
With the narrator having a responsibility to take care of his brother, he consistently forces the fact that he wants his brother to be well off and not care about his passion in music. The older they got, the more they drove away from each other because of the fact the narrator becomes overly protective with Sonny, and uses a “tough love” strategy though it does not making any positive effect. After they took some time apart, they both realized they cannot emotionally make it in this world without one
After discovering what has happened to Sonny, the narrator makes it seem as if he does not care and does not want interference in the life he has worked so hard to create. This is proven when the narrator discusses what has happened to Sonny with one of his brother’s friends. As shown through this quote, the narrator is not concerned about what has happened to his brother and believes it is not his responsibili...
The narrator allows Sonny to move into his apartment. By allowing Sonny to live with him he has allowed to trust him again. For example, the narrator explains, “The idea of searching Sonny’s room made me still. I scarcely dared to admit to myself what I’d be searching for. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found it. Or if I didn’t” (pg. 91). This shows how the narrator had the opportunity to search his brother’s room, but had the ability not to. Tension grew among brothers while living under one roof. This starts the climax of both arguing in the apartment. The narrator doesn’t understand why his brother wants to be a musician. This argument was built of emotion both had and not yet discussed among each other. Such as the narrator expressing his anger towards his brother’s drug use and Sonny’s frustration towards the narrator not understanding his plan to become a jazz musician. For example, the narrator states, “I realized, with this mocking look, that there stood between us, forever, beyond the power of time or forgiveness, the fact that I had held silence – so long! – when he had needed human speech to help him” (pg.94). The argument with his brother made him realize that he abandon his younger brother when he needed him the most. He realized that if he would have spoken out and talk about his drug use that he wouldn’t have to go