Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis on sonny's blues
Critical analysis of sonny's blues
Sonny's blues analyis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“Sonny’s Blues” contains a lot of darkness throughout the story. Sonny’s Blues uses Sonny’s pain, fear, desolation and losses of loved ones and Harlem’s negativity to show the representation of darkness. This darkness begins when the narrator reads the article about his brother Sonny. The narrator starts to have much darkness imagery. On the subway the narrator feels “Trapped in darkness which roared outside” Page93 (Norton Introduction to Literature, Sonny’s Blues). The narrator disbelieves that this is actually happening to his brother. His trapped in negative thoughts on Sonny’s drug abuse that he starts to feel scared for sonny. The narrator feels that he has failed at taking care of his brother. The narrator compares Sonny’s darkness with his student’s darkness. Stated in the following quote “ These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against …show more content…
“The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It’s what they’ve come from. It’s what they know. The child knows what they won’t talk anymore because if he knows too much about what’s happened to them, he’ll know too much too soon, about what’s going to happen to him.” page100. (Norton Introduction to Literature, Sonny’s Blues). This quote shows the cruelty and suffering the community had to go through. In “Sonny’s Blues” the mom goes on telling a story about the narrator and Sonny’s uncle who had been out with his brother (Sonny’s dad) one late night who was drunk and decided to run down a hill with his guitar and was killed by drunken men in a car. She says “This car was full of white men” Page101(Norton Introduction to Literature, Sonny’s Blues).The mother says this to warn the narrator that Sonny might fall through the same steps like his uncle not only that but she was showing her concern and worries that racism is still a big threat to her
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.
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.
Sonny’s Blues By James Baldwin Sonny’s Blues the author is presenting the past from the perspective of the present in order to understand his own feelings concerning the role of a father. The two brothers in the story had different life choices. Both Sonny and the narrator have found their own mode of escaping the violence and harshness of the ghetto, different though those modes might be. After the death of the mother the narrator feels he is his brother’s keeper, because of the promise he made to the mother. He is not exactly happy about it and especially Sonny’s life style. Nevertheless, this is his only brother and he made a promise not to turn his back on him. Sonny was more like his uncle a music lover. Before the mother died she told him about his father and the pain he went through after the death of his brother. His father’s brother was a music lover and somewhat like Sonny. So, by telling this story it would help the narrator to understand Sonny. Now he knows a little about his family background and roots. At the end the narrator was finally able to see and understand what music did for Sonny; it allow him to be himself and express himself to other. Explore the implications of the allusion to the Book of Isaiah 51:17-23 in the concluding sentence. What has the narrator learned as the result of his experience? All of the desolation, destruction, famine, sword things that we (the narrator) go through in this life, are learned through other who have shared these same experiences. Our oppressor (Satan spiritually, mankind physically) causes a trembling in our lives; but just like Jerusalem, who was and still is oppressed; God has already taken our “cup of trembling”. We are delivered through the sharing of our experiences with one another, freeing ourselves from one who causes the trembling.
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.
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" the symbolic motif of light and darkness illustrates the painful nature of reality the two characters face as well as the power gained through it. The darkness represents the actuality of life on the streets of the community of Harlem, where there is little escape from the reality of drugs and crime. The persistent nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a means of escaping the darkness of their lives. The main character, Sonny, a struggling jazz musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing the creativity and artistic ability that lies within him. While using music as a way of creating a sort of structure in his life, Sonny attempts to step into the light, a life without drugs. The contrasting images of light and darkness, which serve as truth and reality, are used to depict the struggle between Sonny and the narrator in James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues."
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 "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 reader relate to it. The story is told from 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.
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."
In conclusion, “Sonny’s Blues” is the story of Sonny told through his brother’s perspective. It is shown that the narrator tries to block out the past and lead a good “clean” life. However, this shortly changes when Sonny is arrested for the use and possession of heroin. When the narrator starts talking to his brother again, after years of no communication, he disapproves of his brother’s decisions. However, after the death of his daughter, he slowly starts to transform into a dynamic character. Through the narrator’s change from a static to a dynamic character, readers were able to experience a remarkable growth in the narrator.
"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.
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.
“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...
...ne’s suffering are portrayed throughout the story. It eventually leads to a deeper understanding between Sonny and his brother. This has changed and improved their relationship. The brother, through his guilt, came to recognize his role in Sonny’s life. He finally was able to understand what his mother was asking of him. Through the renewal of their relationship, they both learn to accept each other as the persons they really are. Sonny and his brother grew up under the same circumstances; poverty, the temptations that exist from living in Harlem and the racial injustices that exist during this time period. They learn to deal with their individual sufferings in their own way. Suffering can be an intense experience, but can lead to a self awareness that would not otherwise be acknowledged without it.