In James Baldwin 's short story "Sonny 's Blues" is set off as the narrator reads the newspaper and finds out his younger brother, Sonny has been arrested for a drug-related crime. The news has a definite effect on the narrator as he tries to go about his day as an Algebra teacher. The narrator tries to understand how this could have happened and analyzes Sonny 's character when he was young. The narrator will begin to put the pieces gradually together as the story progresses with flashbacks and time leading to communications with his brother. In this story, Baldwin suggests many inherent factors to human nature and how the status of a brother or citizen in a society can deeply influence the experience.
The protagonist and the narrator of
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The name of the narrative is not provided but through the story’s content the reader is informed that the narrative is the big brother of the Sonny, a supporting character in the story. The narrator is a reliable and consistent in the story. His perspective is the perfect choice for the story in order to present the information to the reader. If the story was written from Sonny’s perspective, the reader might not find the perspective reliable due to his drug abuse. By changing the point of view in the story will affect the overall central idea of the story. The narrator’s point of view is essentially important because one of the stresses this character has been the enormous care for his brother despite not being able to understand him. Throughout the story he is reminded of the responsibility he has for his brother. This can be seen right at the beginning when he defends his brother not being able to use drugs and suggesting he was a good kid. The reader can also see throughout the story guilt that he has for not taking care and being there for his younger even when his mother reminded him …show more content…
Although this central idea can be universal, it is imperative to the story. The story is set in Harlem, NY and is assumed to be in the 50’s due to the information that they both went to war, but is not specified the war in particular. The setting is an actual setting and a particular one as well; it is not vague. The background is important to the plot because it provides essential information on the framework of these characters and the period the story is set. The character’s in this story are both African American and have grown up in a widely rough known residentially segregated area. Throughout the setting, descriptions are very precise helping the reader understand the intensity of the environment. Discusses the women of color who have been beaten up that walk the street, to the houses and apartments that they have created adolescent memories in no longer present. In the article “The Perilous Journey to a Brother’s Country: James Baldwin and the Rigors of the Community” by Keith Clark, he explains the “encoded” acceptance of the reality of space the characters lived in and he outcomes they face in their neighborhood. An area that is dominantly occupied by African Americans this gives larger historical and societal information on racial
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
James Baldwin portrays the narrator and Sonny as the significance of having a strong relationship with family and the ability to succeed the battle of your personal demons fighting with your beliefs. The narrator or ‘big brother’ is a responsible
Throughout the story, the narrator learns how important it is to Sonny for him to care and listen to him. Sonny is vulnerable and in a state where he is getting into trouble with drugs and alcohol perhaps because he feels as though no one cares enough to help him. The narrator lives his life as a teacher while Sonny spends his days using drugs hoping someday to pursue his dreams of music. Both characters end up in a place they are meant to be; acting as family and leaning on each other for support, which is the true importance of an older brother.
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.
The theme of "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin focuses on whether a person should be conventional in making decisions for their life, or if they should follow their heart and do what is right for them. A person begins with strengths, many of which they lose along the way. At some point along their heroic journey a person may regain their strengths and develop new ones. Each phase of this journey will have an effect on them and others around them.
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.
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
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.
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.
I feel having Sonny's brother narrate the story in the first person is Baldwin's way of telling us that Sonny's brother is also suffering but inside, unlike Sonny who takes drugs and sings the blues. Sonny's ...
Struggle, drugs, separation and reunion, that is what James Baldwin illustrates in Sonny’s blues. It is the story between two entirely different brothers as they struggle to discover who each one of them really is. “Sonny’s Blues” is narrated through the nameless older brother through first person with limited omniscience. Point of view is the narrator’s position in relation to the story which is depicted by the attitude toward the characters and Baldwin purposely picks to tell the story in the first person point of view because of the omniscient and realistic effects it contribute to the story overall. The point of view in this
First of all, the identity of Sonny is contrasted sharply with his brother, the narrator. The most obvious difference between the two is their names. Sonny's name is prominent and part of the story's theme. Sonny's brother, on the other hand, is never given a name. Despite being the voice and the perspective of the story, the narrator does not have a distinct identity. He is known solely by his relationship with others, his status as a brother, a son, a husband and a father.
First, the exposition of this story starts with the narrator who discovers Sonny in the newspaper for using and selling heroin. As he reads the paper on the subway he couldn’t believe what he had read. This made him reminisce the days that
“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...