Jazz in American Literature
Jazz music is a musical art genre that developed in the African-American communities in New Orleans. Although jazz was originally thought to be a lower class movement meant for the impoverished black communities, jazz music quickly developed to become a major form of musical expression in the 1920s. The musical elements of jazz permeated throughout American literature, as a means of exposing the struggles of African-Americans living in a racist society, while providing comfort and healing through the universalities of suffering. The musical techniques of jazz, including call and response, syncopation, and improvisation, provide a means of communication and an expression of hardships to provide comfort and healing
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through the universalities of suffering. The use of call and response in American literature allows for the communication of ideas and emotions between characters as an expression of their lament and suffering.
Throughout Sonny’s Blues, Sonny and the Narrator struggle to achieve understanding of each other’s sufferings often resulting in conflict. Towards the end of the story, Baldwin utilizes the call and response technique to express the narrator’s eventual understanding of Sonny’s sufferings through listening to Sonny’s blues, “I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth,” (Baldwin 454). The symbolism of the silent communication the brothers at the end of the story established that both the narrator and Sonny had a mutual understanding of each other’s sufferings and the mutual comfort of jazz. Through employing call and response, Baldwin emphasizes that jazz was a bridge of communication between two individuals and illuminates the truth about personal suffering. However, Ralph Ellison utilizes this musical technique in Invisible Man to expose the injustices that minorities endure as a result of a …show more content…
restrictive society. In the Battle Royale scene, as the narrator delivers his victory speech, he mentions “social responsibility” several times to his audience, with the white men repeating back, “What?...Louder...More!” (Ellison, 30) Ellison includes call and response to communicate that although white society does “celebrate” minority success to some degree, white society also seeks to prevent “extreme” black success and individuality in an effort to maintain the power and control that white society has on blacks. This specific example of call and response helps develop Ellison’s theme that racism oppresses an individual’s will to finding their own identity. In essence, call and response provides as the communication of ideas and emotions to express the frustrations of racism and suffering. Syncopation is the unexpected rhythm of the offbeat and is developed through the poem’s rhythm and rhyme or through alliteration, consonance, and assonance.
In Weary Blues by Langston Hughes, the speaker describes the "drowsy syncopated tune,"(Line 1) this emphasizes the lyrical “swaying” movement of the poem and represents the singer’s weary deposition and resignation to his fate. Hughes develops syncopation throughout Weary Blues, through the assonance of “droning” and “drowsy” that mimic the yawning, tired tone. In contrast, Hughes emphasizes the Ts and Cs of “syncopated tune” to mimic the syncopated rhythms of ragtime music. In Trumpet Player, Hughes reflects how music can alleviate the sufferings endured through hardships. The first stanza puts vocal emphasis on “slave ships”, suggesting that the trumpet player bears the burden of his own struggles. However, there is a lack of syncopation in the last stanza, suggesting that music provides relief of his burdens. Through syncopation, the rhythmic nature of the blues emphasizes struggles endured by minorities and the endurance and strength that the blues music gives to
them. Since its inception, jazz music has exercised a major influence on American literature’s subject matter and style. The musical techniques of jazz, including syncopation, call and response, and improvisation, emphasized the struggles experienced by minorities living in a racially, repressive society. Jazz was embraced in American literature as a liberating force that unified people together, building and solidifying connections of hope in spite of the many tribulations.
Sonny’s Blues written by James Baldwin appears to suggest that family and faith are important aspects in someone’s life and that each person has a different way of dealing with their own demons. The author writes with an expressive purpose and narrative pattern to convey his message and by analyzing the main characters, the point of view of the narration, the conflict in the story and the literary devices Baldwin utilizes throughout his tale, his central idea can be better understood.
James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues tells the story of the narrator and his brother and the hardships that they must endure. As Kahlil Gibran States “Out of suffering have emerged the strangest souls, the most massive characters are seared with scars.” (Gibran). In that very quote the real light is shown as it informs the reader that with suffering comes growth and once the person whomever it may be emerges out of the darkness they may have scars but it has made them stronger. The theme of light and darkness as well as suffering play a vital part in this story. For both men there are times in which they have the blues and suffer in the darkness of their lives but music takes the suffering from them.
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story in which James Baldwin, the author, presents an existential world where suffering characterizes a man’s basic state. The theme of tragedy and suffering can be transformed into a communal art form such as blues music. Blues music serves as a catalyst for change because the narrator starts to understand that not only the music but also himself and his relationship with Sonny. The narrator’s view of his brother begins to change; he understands that Sonny uses music as an exit of his suffering and pain. This story illustrates a wide critical examination. Richard N. Albert is one critic that explores and analyzes the world of “Sonny’s Blues”. His analysis, “The Jazz-Blues Motif in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”” is an example of how one can discover plot, characterization and jazz motif that builds this theme of suffering.
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.
All of humanity suffers at one point or another during the course of their lives. It is in this suffering, this inevitable pain, that one truly experiences life. While suffering unites humankind, it is how we choose to cope with this pain that defines us as individuals. The question becomes do we let suffering consume us, or do we let it define our lives? Through James Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues”, the manner by which one confronts the light and darkness of suffering determines whether one is consumed by it, or embraces it in order to “survive.” Viewing a collection of these motifs, James Baldwin’s unique perspective on suffering as a crucial component of human development becomes apparent. It is through his compassionate portrayal of life’s inescapable hardships that one finds the ability to connect with humankind’s general pool of hardship. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” makes use of the motifs of darkness and light to illuminate the universal human condition of suffering and its coping mechanisms.
Jazz is an American genre that developed from ragtime and blues in the early twentieth century in urban areas of the U.S. This genre is characterized by strong, prominent meter, improvisation, distinctive tone colors, and performance techniques. The development of Jazz made a postive, lasting impact after World War One ended. It became a way of bringing young people together. Jazz became the basis for most social dance music and provided one of the first opportunities for public integration. Subcultures like the gangs of New York and Chicago encouraged the subjugation of the black artists to the white man’s economic and social power, often resulting in gang leaders having complete control over
In "Sonny's Blues" James Baldwin presents an intergenerational portrait of suffering and survival within the sphere of black community and family. The family dynamic in this story strongly impacts how characters respond to their own pain and that of their family members. Examining the central characters, Mama, the older brother, and Sonny, reveals that each assumes or acknowledges another's burden and pain in order to accept his or her own situation within an oppressive society. Through this sharing each character is able to achieve a more profound understanding of his own suffering and attain a sharper, if more precarious, notion of survival.
In James Baldwin’s short story, Sonny’s Blues, he describes a story of pain and prejudice. The theme of suffering makes the readers relate to it. The story is told in the realistic point of view of Sonny’s brother. The setting and time of the story also has great significance to the story. From beginning to end, the story is well developed.
The story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a story about people’s actions and the effect that they have on the environment and the people around them. The Narrator is the older brother and the keeper of Sonny after his mother passes away. It is his duty to watch over his younger brother and to help guide him through life and to make the correct decisions. This caused great distress for him because he was never able to control Sonny and the life that he chooses to live. Sonny is The Narrators brother and is a dynamic character who decides early on what he wants to do with his life. This creates a constant tug of war with his brother which ends with him denouncing his brother and they also ceased talking for a long time. Sonny is also addicted
The narrator in James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, at first glance seems to be a static character, trying to forget the past and constantly demeaning his brother’s choices in life. Throughout the story, readers see how the narrator has tried to forget the past. However, his attempt to forget the past soon took a turn. When the narrator’s daughter died, he slowly started to change. As the narrator experiences these changes in his life, he becomes a dynamic character.
Baldwin’s superior usage of point of view is a major cause of the success of “Sonny’s Blues.” By having the point of view as first person, and having the main omniscient character, the brother tells the story and reading it from his perspective grants the reader a more completeness of the story, which would otherwise be incomplete. “Sonny’s Blues” shows that point of view matters and that you’ll never understand someone else until you step into those other shoes and walk a mile in
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
Jazz is referred as “America’s classical music,” and is one of North America’s and most celebrated genres. The history of Jazz can be traced back to the early era of the 20th century of the U.S. “A History of Jazz” presents From Ragtime and Blues to Big Band and Bebop, jazz has been a part of a proud African American tradition for over 100 years. A strong rhythmic under-structure, blue notes, solos, “call-and response” patterns, and
Now a days, many believe that jazz is not that important of music genre, but with our history, jazz plays a big role. “Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but it is a gift that America has given to the world.”, quoted by Ahmad Alaadeen. Jazz in the 1920’s opened the eyes of whites and invited them into African American culture; it evolved Americans to where we are today since it brought a change to the music scene, an acceptance of African Americans, and a change of lifestyles.
Goldman, Suzy B. "James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music." Negro American Literature Forum 3rd ser. 8 (1974): 231-33. St. Louis University. Web. Apr.-May 2014.