James Baldwin is a writer from the twentieth century. He wrote “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story with the image in Harlem, as many of his stories were, was published in 1957. “Sonny’s Blues” is about the narrator, who remained nameless, and how his life changed after he discovers his brother’s drug addiction. “Sonny’s Blues” highlights the theme of light and darkness throughout the story’s good and bad event, the struggles of brotherly love, and the dilemmas that the narrator and Sonny face as siblings by being raised the same but taking totally different routes in their lives. “Sonny’s Blues” displays imagery in the theme of the story as he portrays light and darkness in events throughout the story tells us as reader the good and the bad. The light of the story being the good and graceful events show when the narrator describes his brother Sonny as a child, and the way his face lit up on Sunday afternoons during their parents friendly gatherings after church. The light is everything good through the flow of the story. The light also shows when the brothers rebuild their relationship at the end of the story. Light represents all of the positivity and hopeful events that are a part of life. The darkness shows in Sonny’s addiction, the fight between the brothers, as well the narrator’s feelings towards his brother’s life style, and the loss of his daughter. When the story first opens the narrator looks out to the young boys and starts to say: “These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darkness’s, the darkness of their lives, which were now closi... ... middle of paper ... ...he brotherly love that can strengthen both of them. Even though the narrator and Sonny grew up in the same house being raised the same they both took different paths in life. The narrator was the ambitious son that was not a trouble maker. He was the good child that had good grades in school and wanted to be successful by putting out hard work to get it. Sonny, on the other hand, was the bad that was not very ambitious through hard work but through his music. The themes in “Sonny’s Blues”, shows a constant struggle between brotherly love and the imagery of how the narrator shows the light and dark of their lives. The mother gives the narrator the obligation to look after his brother no matter what. The light and dark within the story elaborates with imagery and flash back events that gave light and darkness into their lives that were separate but both had problems.
According to Liukkonen, James Baldwin is well known for his "novels on sexual and personal identity, and sharp essays on civil-rights struggle in the United States." "Sonny's Blues" is no exception to this. The story takes place in Harlem, New York in the 1950's and tells of the relationship between two brothers. The older brother, who is the narrator and a participant in the novel, remains unnamed throughout the story. The novel is about the struggles, failures and successes of these two African American brothers growing up in the intercity as a minority. The encounters that the narrator and his brother, Sonny, have throughout the story exemplify Baldwin's theme of personal accountability and ethical criticism.
In “Sonny’s Blues” the story starts with the narrator who is Sonny’s brother. Sonny’s brother first knew about Sonny’s arrest by reading the newspaper. While reading it, he was angry and in pain because he was thinking about how Sonny got himself into a bad place. After running into Sonny’s old friend, the narrator is talking to him and the friend is explaining how it was his fault that Sonny is in jail and he is the reason why Sonny started selling and using heroin. After talking to Sonny’s old friend, the narrator is mad and upset that Sonny would do that. Sonny’s brother looks back and thinks that Sonny is a troublemaker, but never to that extent.
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.
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.
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."
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."
Baldwin, James. "Sonny’s Blues." The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Shorty Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. 8th ed. Bedord / St. Martin's, 2011. 835--839. Print.
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.
"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.
James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" highlights the struggle because community involvement and individual identity. Baldwin's "leading theme - the discovery of identity - is nowhere presented more successfully than in the short story 'Sonny's Blues" (Reilly 56). Individuals breeds isolation and even persecution by the collective, dominant community. This conflict is illustrated in three ways. First, the story presents the alienation of Sonny from his brother, the unnamed narrator. Second, Sonny's legal problems suggest that independence can cause the individual to break society's legal conventions. Finally, the text draws heavily from biblical influences. Sonny returns to his family just like the prodigal son, after facing substantial trials and being humiliated. The story's allusion to the parable of the prodigal son reflects Baldwin's profound personal interest in Christianity and the bible.
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.
“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...