More handpicked essays just for you.
James Baldwin literary aspects
Challenges faced by african americans during the 1950
James Baldwin literary aspects
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” written in the 1950s is an examination of the relationship between two brothers that are on divergent paths in life. The older brother, the unnamed narrator, is a math teacher and his younger brother, Sonny, is a drug addict and a musician. Prior to the death of the narrator’s daughter, the brother, our narrator, had lost contact with Sonny, while Sonny spent time in jail for his drug addiction and the selling of drugs. The narrator is understandably upset with his younger brother because he thinks Sonny is not a functioning part of society and made the decision to be a drug addict. The two brothers are at odds, but when the narrator’s daughter dies from polio, he begins to question his life and the role that …show more content…
he plays in his brother’s life. It is this questioning that leads to his reconciliation with Sonny. In perhaps one of the most imaginative uses of language, Baldwin uses the blues form of jazz to compose “Sonny’s Blues” and it is through this use of the structural form of blues/jazz that Baldwin examines the issues of race in 1950s America, more specifically, the Harlem of the 1950s.
The 1950s was a trying time for African Americans, as they were faced with abject failure of the Harlem Renaissance. The narrator, having returned from World War II and settled into a semblance of middle class life, is alienated from his younger brother whom he sees as a drifter and ne’er do well that he must distance himself from. However, his anxiety regarding his life comes into focus when he reads a story in the newspaper about his brother, Sonny’s, arrest. He tells us that he is “scared” (1) for Sonny but the narrator then counters that by stating “I couldn’t believe it but what I mean by that is that I couldn’t find any room for it anywhere inside me. I kept it outside me for a long time” (1). It is this moment when the narrator realizes that even though he is afraid for his younger brother, he …show more content…
is more afraid for himself because by reconnecting with Sonny, he will have to re-establish emotional contact with the Harlem that he had given up when he accepted the middle-class life that came with being an algebra teacher. This middle-class life denotes white America, whereas Sonny’s life in Harlem denotes black America. The differences between black and white culture plays itself out in the conversation that Sonny and the narrator has after Sonny returns from the army. In this conversation, the narrator dismisses Sonny’s ambition to become a musician as something that “kids go through.” Sonny realizes that his brother has already made a decision regarding what he thinks are decent jobs and therefore sees Sonny’s ambition as an impractical and foolish decision, this warranting Sonny’s sentence to his sister-in-law’s family home. Sonny, in a moment that sums up the relationship he has with his brother, tells him “I hear you. But you never hear anything I say.” Sonny is, of course, correct in this statement because his brother had closed himself off to the sights and sounds of his culture long before this story is told. In a way, I feel as if the narrator represents the coldness of the city, while Sonny represents the warmth and life of Harlem—this distinction of New York City and Harlem was made clear in a poem by Leopold Sedar Senghor titled “New York.” In this poem, Senghor posits Manhattan as cold and lifeless, whereas Harlem is the cradle of life because of the music. It is quite clear in the exchanges between Sonny and the narrator, that it is the narrator, with his middle class ideology, that has erected a barrier between him and his brother. It is only when the narrator finally meets Sonny on his tuff in the club that he begins to understand his brother. The narrator’s description of what is happening on stage is his first step towards understanding his brother and the culture that he had abandoned in search of white middle class respectability. This description of the music that Creole and Sonny create becomes representative of the long history of African Americans from their journey through the Atlantic, the middle passage, to slavery in the United States: But as I began to watch Creole, I realized that it was Creole who held them all back.
….Up there, keeping the beat with his whole body, wailing on the fiddle, his eyes half closed, he was listening to everything, but he was listening to Sonny. He was having a dialogue with Sonny. He wanted to Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water. He was Sonny’s witness……(you can add the rest here.) This interplay is perhaps the most significant in the text. When Creole asks Sonny to “strike out for the deep water,” he is asking Sonny to embrace the pain that comes with being a black man in the United States. In taking this risk, Sonny will not only understand himself but will also understand his culture. One item that should be noted is the name “Creole.” Usually, someone that is Creole is a hybrid person, some of a mixed background, the hybrid, the person that stands between black and white. It is therefore significant that Creole is Sonny’s witness in this journey to the discovery of who he is. But he is also the narrator’s witness. Creole becomes the medium through which Sonny and his brother will acknowledge their history and
culture. This acknowledgment of history and culture is necessary if both brothers are to move forward whole. The next song “Am I Blue.” In the rendition of this song, we find Sonny, Creole and the musicians experimenting with different forms only for Creole “to remind them that what they were playing was the blues.” It is appropriate that Creole reminds them that they are playing the blues because it is the form that developed amongst the slaves that allowed them to chronicle their pain. As the narrator tells us, “he hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself and the music tightened and deepened, apprehension began to beat the air. Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about. They were not about anything very new. He and his boys up there keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death in order to find new ways to make us listen. This description becomes an acceptance of a shared history and culture and reminds his listeners of their shared past and the future they face.
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.
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.
A.Freewrite: I am going to write about the point of view used in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin does not use Sonny as the narrator but instead uses his brother. I believe Baldwin used the brother as the narrator to give to give readers the idea that Sonny and his brother do not communicate well with each other. While Sonny listens but does not speak, his brother speaks but does not listen. Baldwin uses the brother as the narrator to highlight the idea that Sonny’s addiction to heroin, love of jazz music, and his melancholy are associated to Sonny’s lack of voice as well as control over his own life.
Baldwin’s story presents the heart breaking portrayal of two brothers who have become disconnected through respective life choices. The narrator is the older brother who has grown past the depravity of his childhood poverty. The narrator’s profession as an algebra teacher reflects his need for a “black” and “white,” orderly outlook on life. The narrator believes he has escaped life’s sufferings until the death of his daughter and the troubling news about his brother being taken in for drug possession broadside him to the reality of life’s inevitable suffering. In contrast, his brother, Sonny has been unable to escape his childhood hardships and has ended up on the wrong side of the law. While their lives have taken ...
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
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.
...open, Creole wishes him Godspeed and allows Sonny to musically weave the tale of his past: "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life" (94). This high plateau of expression is the untainted counterpart to the effects of heroin. This is the major turning point in the story: the point at which Sonny triumphs over the dark side and finally finds a firm grip among the freedom-fighting soldiers of Harlem.
After discovering what has happened to Sonny, the narrator makes it seem as if he does not care and does not want interference in the life he has worked so hard to create. This is proven when the narrator discusses what has happened to Sonny with one of his brother’s friends. As shown through this quote, the narrator is not concerned about what has happened to his brother and believes it is not his responsibili...
In conclusion, the short story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin brings out two main themes: irony and suffering. You can actually feel the pain that Baldwin's characters experience; and distinguish the two different lifestyles of siblings brought up in the same environment. The older brother remaining nameless is a fabulous touch that really made me want to read on. This really piqued my interest and I feel it can lead to many discussions on why this technique was used. I really enjoyed this story; it was a fast and enjoyable reading. Baldwin keeps his readers thinking and talking long after they have finished reading his stories. His writing technique is an art, which very few, if any, can duplicate.
The narrator allows Sonny to move into his apartment. By allowing Sonny to live with him he has allowed to trust him again. For example, the narrator explains, “The idea of searching Sonny’s room made me still. I scarcely dared to admit to myself what I’d be searching for. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found it. Or if I didn’t” (pg. 91). This shows how the narrator had the opportunity to search his brother’s room, but had the ability not to. Tension grew among brothers while living under one roof. This starts the climax of both arguing in the apartment. The narrator doesn’t understand why his brother wants to be a musician. This argument was built of emotion both had and not yet discussed among each other. Such as the narrator expressing his anger towards his brother’s drug use and Sonny’s frustration towards the narrator not understanding his plan to become a jazz musician. For example, the narrator states, “I realized, with this mocking look, that there stood between us, forever, beyond the power of time or forgiveness, the fact that I had held silence – so long! – when he had needed human speech to help him” (pg.94). The argument with his brother made him realize that he abandon his younger brother when he needed him the most. He realized that if he would have spoken out and talk about his drug use that he wouldn’t have to go
To demonstrate, according to the narrator in Sonny's Blues by Mr. Baldwin, we discover the constant struggle of the normative expectations of today’s society to continue education after high school, the influences of racism, and the harsh outcomes of addiction can do to a person who simply wants to live the life they dream of. Therefore, with these amounts of harsh struggles that anyone in sonny’s position goes through can lead anyone to the deep line of hardships, struggles, and mental/emotional breakdowns. Additionally, in the position of Sonny’s, he had to endure these harsh struggles of life with the constant belittlement of the narrator, his environment, and the people around him, which lead to his own self-destruction “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 had blinded them to that other darkness.”(Baldwin 561-562). Important to realize, due to all of these struggles, many individuals could not imagine how anyone could survive a daily lifestyle like this, but due to sonny, many individuals grow a better understanding of what a youngster in the deepest forms of poverty from Harlem, New York goes through on a daily
“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...
James Baldwin, the author of “Sonny Blues,” is an African American novelist and storywriter. In one of his most famous stories, “Sonny’s Blues,” he writes about a young boy that has an addiction to heroin. The story shows the relationship between two brothers and the problems that they, and their family have to endure. The brothers do not have a close bond during the time that the story takes place. James Baldwin, while growing up also dealt with many family issues. He didn’t know his biological father and had trouble being accepted into society being a homosexual African American. The boy portrayed as Sonny in “Sonny’s Blues” very closely resembles the way Baldwin must have been treated growing up. They both were shunned from society, and both struggled with the way their families interacted with one another. Baldwin could have purposely done this to illustrate what his childhood was like and express it to the world through the story that he wrote.
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin chronicles the relationship between two brothers who are both at various points in their lives. The story is narrated by Sonny’s brother who is never named. Although the story is focused on the events of Sonny’s life, readers also get an understanding of the brother’s reactions to Sonny’s actions along with the feelings. Baldwin arranges the story’s events to show a building of an understanding between the two of them where Sonny’s actions are the scope of the story and include the brother’s life as well.