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Sonny blues light and darkness literary criticism
Darkness as a theme in sonnys blues
What is the significance of the many references to darkness and light in “Sonny Blues”
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What is suggested by these and other references to darkness? What do darkness suggest in the story and what is also one or more of the symbols in the story “Sonny Blues”. Darkness is maintained many time thought the story. The story goes back and forth from light to darkness. Each character goes though some darkness thought their life’s in different situation. They managed to get though the darkest of life and move on. They keep living their lives and try to better themselves by doing positive things. By them finding ways to handle the darkness they went though they can overcome it ,the problems it cause them and put them through to see the light that was hidden behind the darkness.
What does the narrator mean when he says of his students,
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The darkness, which represents a roster of social and personal problems. The darkness can be found everywhere. The dimness actually frequents the figures in the story, something they are intensely mindful of once the sun goes down. Sonny's life in jail, his dependence on medications, and the general condition of life in Harlem are all encapsulated by the murkiness. As pervasive as the haziness may be, be that as it may, it is constantly adjusted against a measure of light. Light, at last, comes to connote salvation, solace, and love, though haziness speaks to the apprehension and destruction that dependably debilitates to quench it.
What are some of the symbols used in the story? The narrator symbolizes jazz music, light and darkness. Sonny has been though some dark stations. His life was not always dark when he was younger he had great time with his bother that he loved so much. The narrator says, “I was remembering, and it made it hard to catch my breath, that I had been there when he was born; and I had heard the first words he had ever spoken. When he started to walk, he walked from our mother straight to me. I caught him just before he fell when he took the first steps he ever took in this
I think the main idea the narrators is trying to emphasize is the theme of opposition between the chaotic world and the human need for community with a series of opposing images, especially darkness and light. The narrator repeatedly associates light with the desire to clear or give form to the needs and passions, which arise out of inner darkness. He also opposes light as an idea of order to darkness in the world, the chaos that adults endure, but of which they normally cannot speak to children.
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" a pair of brothers try to make sense of the urban decay that surrounds and fills them. This quest to puzzle out the truth of the shadows within their hearts and on the streets takes on a great importance. Baldwin meets his audience at a halfway mark: Sonny has already fallen into drug use, and is now trying to return to a clean life with his brother's aid. The narrator must first attempt to understand and make peace with his brother's drug use before he can extend his help and heart to him. Sonny and his brother both struggle for acceptance. Sonny wants desperately to explain himself while also trying to stay afloat and out of drugs. Baldwin amplifies these struggles with a continuous symbolic motif of light and darkness. Throughout "Sonny's Blues" there is a pervasive sense of darkness which represents the reality of life on the streets of Harlem. The darkness is sometimes good but usually sobering and sometimes fearful, just as reality may be scary. Light is not simply a stereotypical good, rather it is a complex consciousness, an awareness of the dark, and somehow, within that knowledge there lies hope. Baldwin's motif of light and darkness in "Sonny's Blues" is about the sometimes painful nature of reality and the power gained from seeing it.
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.
The opening paragraph of the story contains a metaphorical passage: "I stared at it in the swinging light of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside"(349). This reference is significant because it is a contrast to the dismal society that the narrator and his brother Sonny live in. The darkness is the portrayal of the community of Harlem that is trapped, in their surroundings by physical, economic, and social barriers. The obvious nature of darkness has overcome the occupants of the Harlem community. The narrator, an algebra teacher, observes a depressing similarity between his students and his brother, Sonny. This is true because the narrator is fearful for his students falling into a life of crime and drugs, as did his brother. The narrator notes that the cruel realities of the streets have taken away the possible light from the lives of his brother and his students. The narrator makes an insightful connection between the darkness that Sonny faced and the darkness that the young boys are presently facing. This is illustrated in the following quote:
Buddha has famously been attributed saying that “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” In life others pave pathways that we must take that may seem suitable, and if we diverge we are seen as rebellious. The short story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, is narrated by Sonny’s older brother who shares from his perspective the struggles in life he and his brother go through growing up in the projects of Harlem, New York. Using imagery that makes readers feel as though they are experiencing it as well, the author vividly portrays the difficulties of finding a path in life through the various factors that inhibit one such as family, friends, and the cultural standard ascribed to one. In the story,
In conclusion, Sonny’s Blues depicts the love of a brother through the narrator, who at the beginning was disengaged, unsupportive, and emotionally distant. However, the turning point was when Grace died. This triggered a great turmoil of feelings that overflowed the narrator leading him to a major and impacting change. Instead, he turned into being involved, supportive, understanding, honest, and accepting of his brother Sonny; regardless of the reality that there was no guarantee his pain would not consume his life.
Several passages found throughout "Sonny's Blues" indicate that as a whole, the neighborhood of Harlem is in the turmoil of a battle between good and evil. The narrator describes Sonny's close encounters with the evil manifested in drugs and crime, as well as his assertive attempts at distancing himself from the darker side. The streets and communities of Harlem are described as being a harsh environment which claims the lives of many who have struggled against the constant enticement of emotional escape through drugs, and financial escape through crime. Sonny's parents, just like the others in Harlem, have attempted to distance their children from the dark sides of their community, but inevitably, they are all aware that one day each child will face a decisionb for the first time. Each child will eventually join the ranks of all the other members of society fighting a war against evil at the personal level so cleanly brought to life by James Baldwin. Amongst all the chaos, the reader is introduced to Sonny's special secret weapon against the pressures of life: Jazz. Baldwin presents jazz as being a two-edged sword capable of expressing emotions like no other method, but also a presenting grave danger to each individual who bears it. Throughout the the story, the reader follows Sonny's past and present skirmishes with evil, his triumphs, and his defeats. By using metaphorical factors such as drugs and jazz in a war-symbolizing setting, Baldwin has put the focus of good and evil to work at the heart of "Sonny's Blues."
"Sonny's Blues" is filled with examples of music and how it makes things better. The schoolboy, the barmaid, the mother, the brother, the uncle, the street revivalists, all use music to create a moment when life isn't so ugly, even though the world still waits outside and trouble stretches above. Music and the tale it tells provide hope and joy; instead of being the instrument of Sonny's destruction, introducing him to the world of drugs, music is his way out of some of the ugliness. For Sonny and the other characters in this story, music is a bastion against the despair that pervades stunted lives; it is the light that guides them from the darkness without hope.
In the setting of “Sonny’s Blues” the element of illusion is used to create above all a world of beauty, illness and horror. Baldwin uses the sense of sight in his work. Using colors of vast difference to express to his readers their definition of what good vs bad, and light vs dark is. However it is so much more than that, he gives his readers the opportunity to consider truth. He introduces Sonny a character who fall’s victim to subjectivity and bias. With the tremendous use if illusion and color, Baldwin paints a picture and Sonny’s character is reviled in an almost angelic way. This theme is prevalent throughout the story, and Baldwin’s use of illusion really captures the truth in the story. He uses such colors as yellow to signify the illness of the streets and the drugs that consume them in the character of Sonny’s friend. The color of blue is one that is used often in the story but in different contrasts; blue signifies the beauty of Sonny’s conquering to his addiction...
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
... 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.
“A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways- by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize the same thing happens to the soul” (Plato 3). In a literal meaning, the term dark is defined as, “with little or no light,” and the term light is defined as, “the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible” (Dictionary.com). However, when used in a piece of work, such as this one, darkness and light can be associated with an endless amount of meanings. For instance, by using imagery, any author can write a story about one event that’s happening, but have a deeper, more meaningful message that isn’t so straightforward. For example, in both Oedipus the King and “The Allegory
There is the narrator, the narrator’s wife, Robert, Beulah, and an officer. The narrator is the one that makes jokes about blind people and just becomes mean to people. The narrator’s wife is the opposite of the narrator. She is generous and sincere of others. Robert in the beginning of the story seems like a nice guy but he is a character that just lurks behind others and spectates what others are doing. He is also a wise man. Then there is Beulah, who is a late wife for Robert. Beulah died from cancer. Then the last person in the story was the officer. The officer was the “childhood sweetheart” of the narrator’s wife. In Sonny’s Blues there are also five characters that play an important role. There is Sonny who is the main character. Sonny is the unfortunate character. There are so many struggles that has occurred in his life. Then we have and unnamed narrator. The story is through his perspective of how things went down. Next we have Creole. Creole only comes in the end of the story but he was the one that let Sonny join his jazz club. Lastly, there is Grace and Isabel. Isabel is married to the narrator and Grace is the daughter of the narrator that died from polio. Some of these characters from both stories can share familiar characteristics with each
Unlike his father, Sonny was able to harness the vulnerability he felt living in Harlem into an artwork that gave him the power to build an empire. Sonny’s vulnerability can be seen in the first pages where the narrator explains Sonny being sent to jail and rehab for addiction but also exposes the vulnerability in drug users in Harlem. The narrator muses that to get that low comes with a vulnerability being. Sonny describes this state as being “ in a deep, real deep and funky hole and just saw the sun up there,outside. I got to get outside.”(Baldwin ,109). It is here Sonny describes his vulnerability as being stuck but he also sees the light and knows he had to work to get out of his situation. This knowledge gives him the power of change and it’s with this change that gives him music. Through music Sonny builds his way out. The narrator calls the bar he plays at, “...Sonny’s world. Or rather, his kingdom.” (Ibid, 136). This not kingdom Sonny inherited it was one he built to escape the horrors and hungry world outside. It was his power to create space where that feeling could never penetrate and because of so he could seek change in his life from drugs and not being heard. Sonny brought his brother, the narrator, to his kingdom, the one he had power over and the narrator hears and feels every note played. It is that power in Sonny and his will to change his stangs
The darkness in Sonny’s life is the possibility of death because of his drug addiction."Tell me," I said at last, "why does he want to die? He must want to die, he's killing himself, why does he want to die?" (Baldwin 295). Drug addiction has the biggest amount of deaths world wide, it starts off with a little try and then leads to lies and unimaginable actions. Like the narrator my sibling does drugs, the darkness in her addiction is the close friendship she has with the possibility of death. The darkness is also transmitted into the narrator's life because he has the fear of losing his only brother. “...In my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside” (Baldwin, 292). The narrator’s darkness is from within. Since the beginning of the story the narrator is more concerned with his own life and is very conceited. He always views others in a negative way and he always thinks negatively. For him the darkness is the life he lives and the life others choose to live. The narrator feels that it is pointless to teach high school math to a group of kids who might not get out of Harlem. He also acknowledges that there might be something good about drugs. “All they really knew were two darknesses: the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they