Analysis Of Sonny's Blues And Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

800 Words2 Pages

Imagine you’re confined to a wooden box where you’re only allowed tiny amounts of movements but your arms and feet are free of clutches and there is a few holes on the top surface of the box so you are allowed to breathe. How free are you? In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and the novel “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison we are spectators of ‘Black Oppression’. Where the Blacks regardless of the abolition of slavery, are still mentally enslaved and physically limited to any kosher manifestation of success without the sway of the Whites. Consequently, of reading these written works I only now realized the gap of history that I’ve forgotten to see. When I was sixteen years old I remember telling myself, “Oh hell to those who …show more content…

His related action towards his grandfather’s words, “Live with your head in the lion 's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open" as a action of distrust since he believes that the best way to winning the fight was to provide them with genuine commitment. The narrator chooses to surrender himself to the Whites and devoting himself to gaining the respect and trust of the Whites. It is to my believe that the narrator is projecting himself as civilized and hospitable in order to change the views of himself to one that is less barbaric in the eyes of the Whites. He is lead to believe that his compliance has leaded him to a rewarding future and is thought to believe that he has acquired some sort of …show more content…

To leave no leave unturned, Sonny’s Blue has leaned me into a risker province where I am to choose freedom of my body or my mind. Like the narrator in “Battle Royal” the narrator in “Sonny’s Blue” are more so related. Both narrator turns a blind eye from the sufferance of their people; which not only leads them to crime but an unwritten endorsement to abide by the Black Stereotype. Sunny however normatively is influenced by the crime in his home town, Harlem. Upon his capture and release from prison he is driven on redirecting himself on a right path. He finds his escape from the crime and sufferance through Music, where he drowns his sorry and feels the sufferance of his people and

Show More
Related

  • Baldwin's Views on Struggles of Blacks in America

    1533 Words  | 4 Pages

    The absence of true freedom is apparent in Baldwin?s other essays, in which he writes about the rampant prejudice and discrimination of the 1950?s and 60?s. Blacks during this time were limited as to where they could live, go to school, use the bathroom, eat, and drink. ?Such were the cases of a Nigerian second secretary who was rebuffed last week when he tried to order breakfast in Charlottesville, VA, and a Ghanaian second secret...

    Read More

  • Sonny's Heroic Journey in James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues

    2967 Words  | 6 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Were Black Americans Made Free and Equal by the Abolition of Slavery, 1865-1915?

    677 Words  | 2 Pages

    While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.

    Read More

  • Analysis of James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    First, the very sorrow that the characters in this story face is that of racial discrimination a form of darkness. It is noted in the very first paragraph “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness that roared outside.”(58) The setting of this story takes place in Harlem, New York. The city of Harlem is notoriously known for its inner city, poverty stricken population and mostly as a location in which to find African Americans. “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.” (59). The story Sonny’s Blues was written in the 1950’s which clearly segregation was still indeed active and the African Americans were lynched by the darkness of their skin tone. In the 1950’s the chance of an African American becoming successful especially with coming from the ghetto was extremely low. In the time frame that presents itsel...

    Read More

  • Sonny's Blues Essay Outline

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    A.Freewrite: I am going to write about the point of view used in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin does not use Sonny as the narrator but instead uses his brother. I believe Baldwin used the brother as the narrator to give to give readers the idea that Sonny and his brother do not communicate well with each other. While Sonny listens but does not speak, his brother speaks but does not listen. Baldwin uses the brother as the narrator to highlight the idea that Sonny’s addiction to heroin, love of jazz music, and his melancholy are associated to Sonny’s lack of voice as well as control over his own life.

    Read More

  • Freedom for African Americans in Democracy in the America by Alexis de Tocqueville

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bracey, Meier, and Elliot Rudwick. Free Blacks in America, 1800-1860. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1971.

    Read More

  • Racial Domination, Racial Progress By Matthew Desmond And Mustafa Emirbayer

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    For more than two hundred years, a certain group of people lived in misery; conditions so inhumane that the only simile that can compare to such, would be the image of a caged animal dying to live, yet whose live is perished by the awful chains that dragged him back into a dark world of torture and misfortune. Yes, I am referring to African Americans, whose beautiful heritage, one which is full of cultural beauty and extraordinary people, was stained by the privilege given to white men at one point in the history of the United States. Though slavery has been “abolished” for quite some years; or perhaps it is the ideal driven to us by our modern society and the lines that make up our constitution, there is a new kind of slavery. One which in

    Read More

  • External Conflict In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Simple Justice

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this story it clearly shows us what the courts really mean by freedom, equality, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws. The story traces the legal challenges that affected African Americans freedom. To justify slavery as the “the way things were” still begs to define what lied beneath slave owner’s abilities to look past the wounded eyes and beating hearts of the African Americans that were so brutally possessed.

    Read More

  • Sonny's Blues Thesis

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    The short story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is written in first person through the narrator. This story focuses on the narrator’s brother sonny and their relationship throughout the years. This story is taken place in Harlem, New York in the 1950s. The narrator is a high school algebra teacher and just discovered his brother in the newspaper. This story includes the traditional elements to every story, which consist of the exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution.

    Read More

  • Reflection Of Sonny's Blues

    1625 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin works with the narrator and its younger brother Sonny. The narrator presents life changing moments between both himself and Sonny, although both are related they are both two very distinct individuals. In the beginning of the passage, it started off describing their critical living conditions in Harlem and how people were trapped in the projects while others were able to escape. Although some people were able to escape these living conditions it seemed as though the desperation of trouble would always be with them. The narrator expresses his thoughts on the subject through a complex picture of rage, an express of violent uncontrollable anger reflecting to the audience both external and internal by change, escape, trap, and racism.

    Read More

  • Slavery Synthesis Essay

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    When one thinks of slavery, they may consider chains holding captives, beaten into submission, and forced to work indefinitely for no money. The other thing that often comes to mind? Stereotypical African slaves, shipped to America in the seventeenth century. The kind of slavery that was outlawed by the 18th amendment, nearly a century and a half ago. As author of Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People, Kevin Bales, states, the stereotypes surrounding slavery often confuse and blur the reality of slavery. Although slavery surely consists of physical chains, beatings, and forced labor, there is much more depth to the issue, making slavery much more complex today than ever before.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Air In Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

    1232 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although the world is filled with air, it is perceived to be invisible. Only when one is thinking about air does it become considered visible. As the protagonist develops throughout the novel, Battle Royal, created by Ralph Ellison, he quickly witnesses how microscopic his achievements are to the “Big Shots” in his dominantly white community. To discover that he was just as human as the white men, he had to learn that he could only become visible to them when they wanted him to be. He will never get that constant gratitude of being an individual, instead, like air, he will only seem important when thought of. On his grandfathers deathbed, his father was told to tell him to never be a traitor to not only his culture but more importantly himself.

    Read More

  • Freedom In Ned Cobb's The Meaning Of Freedom

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a former tenant farmer, Ned Cobb shares his experience of the Jim Crow era and reveals the limitations in which black freedom existed. Following emancipation, the African-American population understood their freedom as the basic rights given to the white population. However, after the failure of Reconstruction, the United States continued into an era of vast inequality among races. Southern society, without the institution of slavery, demanded white power was exercised by any other means. This made it difficult for freedmen to succeed in their new independent role. Though the black community was given more civil liberties post-slavery, the lasting oppression of white supremacy prevented any meaningful racial progress in the Southern United

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Sonny's Blues And Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

Open Document