James Baldwin was a writer, dramatist and author viewed as a very savvy, famous essayist with works like The Fire Next Time and Another Country. Writer James Baldwin was conceived on August 2nd, 1924, in Harlem, New York. One of the twentieth century's most prominent authors, Baldwin broke new abstract ground with the investigation of racial and social issues in his numerous works. He was particularly known for his expositions on the African American involvement in America. Baldwin's composition style is a standout amongst the most unmistakable in American writing, known for the two its persuasiveness and expository power. The Bible was one of Baldwin's most punctual abstract impacts. All through his books and stories, he continually depends …show more content…
on scriptural symbolism and expressions to make his good and political focuses. In Sonny's Blues, there is the "cup of trembling" and the portrayal of housing as an expression that could have been lifted specifically from the Book of Revelations in the Bible. Baldwin's sentences likewise contain a scriptural tone and cadence. James Baldwin introduces the art behind musicians and the influence that the musicians have on their listeners. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze James Baldwin's short story Sonny's Blues in regards to the theme of music and art incorporated with racism. In his short story titled Sonny's Blues, the story begins with the narrator reading about his brother; Sonny getting arrested for selling and using heroin products. The narrator teaches algebra, as his day progresses he looks at all his students and thinks that one of them could end up like his brother based on the situations they will encounter living in Harlem. When the school day ends, the narrator is greeted by an old friend from his brother’s past as he leaves the school. He takes a walk with the dirty junky, despite his hatred for the man. As they are walking they talk about Sonny’s life. The narrator does not write to his brother, until he lost his daughter Gracie. The two were inseparable after this incident. After his brother gets released from prison the narrator invited Sonny back to his apartment to live with his family. The narrator begins his flashback to the agreement that he made with their mother. Before the mother passes, she broke down as she told the story of their father’s brother death. The eldest promises to keep Sonny safe after hearing this story. When the mother passes he keeps true to his promise discusses career goals with Sonny and forces him to move in with Isabel’s family. During this talk he finds out that Sonny’s wants to become a jazz musician (Tracy 164). The narrator and his wife’s family didn’t understand Sonny’s fascination with music. When they realized that he was skipping school to go to Greenwich to hang out with musicians during the day, Sonny argues with the family then leaves to join the navy. The narrator searched everywhere for his brother.
When he found Sonny, he was living in a crack house, and immediately the other brother became furious with his current situation. The two brothers had a terrible argument and the narrator stormed out. When the narrator finally leaves the house that is when the flashback ends. Sonny lived with his brother for a couple of weeks. This flashback makes the narrator think he has to search his brother's room for help finding clues. Sonny comes home and invited him out to a jazz club. When the narrator goes and sees Sonny in his element, the people love him, the music come natural to him and he sounds amazing playing the piano in tune with the other musicians' instruments. The narrator finally understands his brother, his life, and what kept him …show more content…
motivated. The characters within James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues, influenced the actions of the main character Sonny. As the reader of a story, you never really hear most dialogue from Sonny, however you do get a great sense of who he is by the actions of the characters around him. These character allow the stereotypes that have been created for musicians to cloud their judgement of the essence and influence music has in society (Harris 103). Musicians are also reflected by music, they use their bodies and voices to express themselves. This is apparent in James Baldwin Sonny's Blues because when his brother the narrator went to the club to see him play the piano, the narrator finally understood who his brother Sonny was. Baldwin's style of writing is inspirational and is meant to leave a message. Expressing the everyday struggles met by the African American youth and community, Baldwin went on to publish many other works of literature including novels, poems, and he even gave many speeches.
The speeches given by Baldwin match the intensity of the short story, Sonny's Blues. For example, James Baldwin addresses the impressionable inner-city students at Oakland Castlemont High School about what is means to black in America. On June 23rd, 1963 Baldwin informs the young adults about the importance of education, that education opens the world to someone. When a person is more educated about their surrounding they are able to discover all that it has to offer. Many young adults have a difficult time solving problems because their development is still happening. Baldwin teaches the students about dignity, the dignity that is worth expressing is when you have pride in oneself. Some people allow the perception of others to signify their
dignity. The youth is still at the mercy of learning from their elders. These people have experienced more about life and can teach what they have learned. The youth should always remember the source that they are getting their information from so that they can differentiate the information given. The learners are just as responsible as the teacher to ask educated questions about the information presented. This exercise will allow the student a chance to understand what was being taught. He discussed with the youth about the importance of knowing who and where their ancestors come from because that helps shapes them in society. Baldwin relates to the students first hand by telling them a story about how he felt when he was growing up in school. He believed that because of the environment that his school was around he was being taught the history of America but he mentions that while the teacher taught this, he felt like his ancestors and his part of history was being left out of the discussion. Proudly knowing your own history, in order to teach it to someone else is the motive of Baldwin's works. This discourse was essential for these youthful understudies since it allowed Baldwin to converse with the cutting edge about the errors that he may have found in his associates and how the up and coming age of African Americans could utilize this history and gain from it and improve the generation of tomorrow. Baldwin successfully depicts the struggled faced by his peers and others surrounding him throughout his life throughout Sonny's Blues. Baldwin's composition style is a standout amongst the most unmistakable in American writing, known for the two its persuasiveness and expository power. Baldwin's sentences likewise contain a scriptural tone and cadence. Baldwin was an evangelist before he turned into an essayist, and there is a trace of this previous minister in a lot of his written work. Now and again, this foundation helped Baldwin to achieve new statures of verse and expert articulation. At different circumstances, in any case, Baldwin's style was reprimanded for being excessively domineering and coordinate in its utilization of good articulations. In Sonny's Blues, Baldwin strikes a fine harmony between utilizing the intermittent explanatory twists and making ethically convoluted characters. The end scene of the story features Baldwin's ability as a beautician. Sonny's execution resembles a religious sermon, however rather than the expressions of a minister, there is just the music. Baldwin depicts the music's impact on the storyteller with as much elegance as a preacher. While the art scene in New York was detonating, a huge number of African American soldiers were returning home from the war and traveling north toward areas like Harlem, where, rather than finding new openings for work and equivalent rights, they discovered recently developed public housing and immense urban ghettos. Sonny and his sibling both serve in the war, and every arrival to discover a fundamentally unique life in America. It was an affair that a huge number of other African Americans confronted following the war's decision. The social equality development, which had started in the South ahead of schedule in the decade, had rapidly started to spread the nation over as a great many African Americans started to upset for level with rights. In spite of the fact that America in the 1950s was for the most part more preservationist, the basis for the radical political developments of the 1960s was being laid (Standley and Leeming 339). Many homes in Harlem were leveled to assemble the public housing, which would in the long run progress toward becoming images of urban curse and neediness. Harlem was at a basic crossroads in its history, apparently prepared, as Sonny notes, to detonate. Sonny's Blues is a declaration to both the dissatisfaction of life in America's urban areas and the inevitable change of that disappointment into a political and creative development.
Sonny’s brother has been distant towards him, but recently, he has been trying to understand him and help him. Sonny decides to take his brother to a concert to see if he will understand what he is trying to convey through music. Sonny hasn’t played the piano for “over a year” and he is a little bit rusty (147). Sonny also says he isn’t on “much better terms with life” than he was a year ago (147). In a way though, he is in a much better place, because his brother is there for him.
The narrator's disapproval of Sonny's decision to become a musician stems in part from his view of musicians in general. His experiences with musicians have led him to believe that they are unmotivated, drug users, seeking only escape from life. He does not really understand what motivates Sonny to play music until the afternoon before he accompanies Sonny to his performance at a club in Harlem. That afternoon, Sonny explains to him that music is his voice, his way of expressing his suffering and releasing his pent-up feelings.
Reilly, John M. " 'Sonny's Blues': James Baldwin's Image of Black Community." James Baldwin: A Critical Evaluation. Ed.Therman B. O'Daniel. Howard University Press. Washington, D.C. 1977. 163-169.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
More specifically speaking, Baldwin is assessing through the fictional story the difficulties in understanding and accepting those who do not comply with social norms. Throughout the entirety of the story it is clear that Sonny’s brother cannot understand his brother or his brother’s choices. This inability to identify with and comprehend his brother drives a wedge between the two, until finally, the narrator shows up to a performance put on by Sonny, opens his mind and his prejudices, and begins to finally understand his
James Baldwin is one of the premier essayists of his time. He draws on his experiences in a straightforward, unapologetic manner, which helps achieve his purpose in The Fire Next Time. His style elucidates his arguments for racial harmony and for the understanding of other religions.
James Baldwin, author of Sonny’s Blues, was born in Harlem, NY in 1924. During his career as an essayist, he published many novels and short stories. Growing up as an African American, and being “the grandson of a slave” (82) was difficult. On a day to day basis, it was a constant battle with racial discrimination, drugs, and family relationships. One of Baldwin’s literature pieces was Sonny’s Blues in which he describes a specific event that had a great impact on his relationship with his brother, Sonny. Having to deal with the life-style of poverty, his relationship with his brother becomes affected and rivalry develops. Conclusively, brotherly love is the theme of the story. Despite the narrator’s and his brother’s differences, this theme is revealed throughout the characters’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and dialogue. Therefore, the change in the narrator throughout the text is significant in understanding the theme of the story. It is prevalent to withhold the single most important aspect of the narrator’s life: protecting his brother.
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.
Though racial and sexual issues seem to continuously serve a main purpose in James Baldwin’s writings, oppression can be described as a useful theme in both “Sonny’s Blues and Going to Meet the Man”( Murphy 6). In “Sonny’s Blues” we meet the narrator, Sonny’s brother who runs into one of Sonny’s old friends who begins conversing with Sonny’s brother about Sonny’s recent arrest. Sonny’s old friend tells the narrator that he “can’t much help Sonny no more” which upsets him because it makes him realize how much he had given up on trying to help his brother. Sonny was suffering from drug abuse, and was in desperate need of a savior. After the
The Life of James Baldwin James Baldwin states, “I knew I was black, of course, but I also knew I was smart. I didn't know how I would use my mind, or even if I could, but that was the only thing I had to use” (PBS 2). This quote from James Baldwin from an article by PBS sums up the challenge he had to face because he was black. Through his personal life, his work and his accomplishments, James Baldwin has been considered one of the most prestigious writers in American Literature. Growing up an African-American in the early 1900s, James Baldwin didn’t have it easy.
The works of James Baldwin are directly related to the issues of racism, religion and personal conflicts, and sexuality and masculinity during Baldwin's years.James Baldwin's works, both fiction and nonfiction were in some instance a direct reflection his life. Through close interpretation you can combine his work to give a "detailed" look into his actual life. However since most writings made by him are all considered true works of literature we can't consider them to be of autobiographical nature.
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.
James Baldwin was born in Harlem in a time where his African American decent was enough to put more challenges in front of him than the average white American boy faced. His father was a part of the first generation of free black men. He was a bitter, overbearing, paranoid preacher who refused change and hated the white man. Despite his father, his color, and his lack of education, James Baldwin grew up to be a respected author of essays, plays, and novels. While claiming that he was one of the best writers of the era could be argued either way, it is hard to argue the fact that he was indeed one of the most well-known authors of the time.
... the miserable life that African Americans had to withstand at the time. From the narrator’s life in Harlem that he loathed, to the drug problems and apprehensions that Sonny was suffering from, to the death of his own daughter Grace, each of these instances serve to show the wretchedness that the narrator and his family had to undergo. The story in relation to Baldwin possibly leads to the conclusion that he was trying to relate this to his own life. At the time before he moved away, he had tried to make a success of his writing career but to no avail. However, the reader can only be left with many more questions as to how Sonny and the narrator were able to overcome these miseries and whether they concluded in the same manner in the life of Baldwin.
James Baldwin was born in 1924 in Harlem, New York to an unwed mother. His mother married David Baldwin, a strict preacher who never accepted James. The oldest of nine children, Baldwin grew up in extreme poverty. Baldwin lived in Harlem until he moved to Paris due to the racial injustices. He returned to the United States in 1957 and became a major part of the civil rights movement. As one of the most popular authors of his time, Baldwin wrote about different problems such as sexual identity, family, church and life as an African American. (Rampersad) In “Sonny’s Blues,” he shows how a brother uses music to ease his suffering. James Baldwin was able to relate to the pain and suffering that jazz represents.