Art and literature work independently of each other, however, they can be linked together to help a reader or observer understand in new ways and create new possibilities. Within this context, the perspective of Jacob Lawrence and the authors address that it takes work to build the ideal society and family. However, the authors give the stark reality of both society and family demonstrating that our reality is nothing like the ideal. Jacob Lawrence was raised in Harlem and within his art are black families and social protest. As a result, he not only challenged the racial status quo but he also included working black females and builders being with their families (Nesbett). Within his piece The Builders, the bright colors of red, blue, yellow, …show more content…
Jones’s “The Girl Who Raised Pigeons” there is a sense of unity within society and family that can be easily correlated to the theme of The Builders. A perfect example of this within society is when Jones states,” he clothed her with a yellow outfit and its yellow bonnet that Wilma Ellis, the school teacher next door, had given Betsy Ann...On the sidewalk he covered her with a light green blanket the Dr. Oscar Jackson and his family up the street had given the baby… Beside her, he placed a blue rattle from the janitor Jake Horton across the street” (Jones 1346). This is important because it shows how the different members of the community of different occupations have all reached out with helping hands to help raise Betsy Ann. In relation to Lawrence, this demonstrates the work being done by members of the society and as a result, the unity is revealed. Another example of this is when Miss Etta sees Betsy Ann and asks, “Yo daddy know you this far from home” (Jones 1353). Although Betsy Ann did not know Miss Anna knew her name, she ultimately gets her out of trouble and sends her home. Once again, the society is working together to help with Betsy Ann and to help one another since Miss Etta could have easily let her get punished by the store …show more content…
Sonny states, “I’m glad mama and daddy are dead and can’t see what’s happened to their son and I swear if I’d known what I was doing I would never have hurt you so, you and a lot of other fine people who were nice to me and believed in me” (Baldwin 417). This expresses disappointment within himself while addressing the hurt and disappointment he has caused to others. This is the not so sweet part of family life and in this instance, the part no-one wants to go through. Later the narrator states, “He came by the house from time to time, but we fought almost every time we met…But there were lots of others people in the room and Sonny just lay on his bed, and he wouldn’t come downstairs with me, and he treated these other people as though they were his family and I weren’t” (Baldwin 427). This portrays a potential disconnect between Sonny and his brother. To treat friends as family and your brother as a stranger demonstrates a vast amount of soreness and a serious lack of brotherly affection between the two. Sonny later states, “And I don’t know how I played, thinking about it now, but I know I did awful things, those times, sometimes, to people. Or it wasn’t that I did anything to them—it was that they weren’t real” (Baldwin 431). This statement along with the others captures how grand obscurities can enter into the family life and destroy it. He says,
Sonny’s brother feels guilty after talking to Sonny’s friend and after his daughter died he decides to write Sonny a letter, he says, “I didn't write Sonny or send him anything for a long time. When I finally did, it was just after my little girl died, and he wrote me back a letter which made me feel like a bastard”(126). From there on he would write and send things to Sonny. The narrator thinks about Sonny being his baby brother and how can someone get themselves in
In both "Sonny’s Blues" and "The Rich Brother", one of the two brothers encounters success through his life whereas the younger one does not follow the same path and constantly disappoints the other. Pete and Sonny’s brother unconditionally love their own brothers for numerous different reasons and they feel an obligation to the other. They believe that it is their duty to take care of Donald and Sonny, but at the same time they cannot or at least in the beginning understand what drives their brothers in life and moreover the reasons that push them to make the choices they are constantly making. Although Sonny’s bad decisions put him through a lot, he finally reinvents himself and proves to his brother his value. Unfortunately Donald does not evolve enough to meet his brother’s expectations. Both young brothers fail in their lives but for very different reasons. Sonny’s drugs addiction puts him to jail and Donald’s quest for the faith of his soul results in many issues with Pete. Nevertheless, Sonny’s brother sees and witnesses what his brother is really capable of, while sadly for Donald, Pete definitely cannot live with his brother’s way of living. "Sonny's Blues" and "The Rich Brother" are perfect examples of how brothers relationships are: full of love but paved with insurmountable obstacles at the same time. At the end of Sonny's story, both brothers can finally "see" each other and are able to live together, while unfortunately for Donald and Pete, it is impossible for them to reach an understanding.
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 central characters in "Sonny's Blues" afford one another a place in which to suffer. The relationships between these brothers and their mother reveal the ways in which family members allow each other moments of weakness in order to access and resolve personal grief. By allowing one another to suffer, the pain becomes easier to bear. They gain a sense of empathy that helps them to face the life ahead of them. The narrator feels "for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet" (439). It is this feeling of companionship that pushes these characters forward against the trouble.
The subject matter of the painting could be inspired by his childhood environment or possibly the neighborhood in which he lived. In addition to the use of dark skin tones within the painting, understanding Lawrence’s culture and heritage allows the viewer to assume that the human figures are also African American. The potential intent behind this painting was to capture a scene of children playing in Lawrence’s neighborhood, and to capture the delighted, spirted, and the carefree emotion behind the children’s attitudes. I believe the purpose of this painting was for Jacob Lawrence to illustrate a time in history and to tell a story. His concern with human freedom is evident in this painting, especially through the children’s’ spirit. Additionally, Lawrence was brought up in a time where African Americans were experiencing freedom for the first time during the Great Migration, therefore this upbringing could also have an influence in his desire to portray freedom as a theme in Children at Play. The children in the painting are experiencing freedom in movement, dance, and in play. Ultimately, Jacob Lawrence wanted to capture the rawness of a human dignity, freedom, and authenticity behind the African-American culture, and I believe the specific purpose of this painting was for Lawrence to share not only another chapter of his life narrative, but a chapter of African American history, as
More specifically speaking, Baldwin is assessing through the fictional story the difficulties in understanding and accepting those who do not comply with social norms. Throughout the entirety of the story it is clear that Sonny’s brother cannot understand his brother or his brother’s choices. This inability to identify with and comprehend his brother drives a wedge between the two, until finally, the narrator shows up to a performance put on by Sonny, opens his mind and his prejudices, and begins to finally understand his
One the most distinguished artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City and spnt part of his child hood in Pennsylvania. After his parents split up in 1924, he went with his mother and siblings to New York, settling in Harlem. "He trained as a painter at the Harlem Art Workshop, inside the New York Public Library's 113 5th Street branch. Younger than the artists and writers who took part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Lawrence was also at an angle to them: he was not interested in the kind of idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks - the Noble Negroes in Art Deco guise - that tended to be produced as an antidote to the toxic racist stereotypes with which white popular culture had flooded America since Reconstruction. Nevertheless, he gained self-confidence from the Harlem cultural milieu - in particular, from the art critic Alain Locke, a Harvard-trained esthete (and America's first black Rhodes scholar) who believed strongly in the possibility of an art created by blacks, which could speak explicitly to African-Americans and still embody the values, and self-critical powers, of modernism. Or, in Locke's own words, "There is in truly great art no essential conflict between racial or national traits and universal human values." This would not sit well with today's American cultural separatists who trumpet about the incompatibility of American experiences - "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand" - but it was vital to Lawrence's own growth as an artist. Locke perceived the importance of the Great Migration, not just as an economic event but as a cultural one, in which countless blacks took over the control of their own lives, which had been denied them in the South: When years later he told an interviewer that "I am the black community," he was neither boasting nor kidding. He had none of the alienation from Harlem that was felt by some other black artists of the 1930s, like the expatriate William Johnson.
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.
Jacob Lawrence has painted figurative and narrative pictures of the black community and black history for more than 60 years in a consistent modernist style, using expressive, strong design and flat areas of color. Jacob Lawrence was a great artist. During Harlem Renaissance, he helped establish African American artists. He gave lectures at Washington University, and he enjoyed working with students of all ages.
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...
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 ...
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
Jacob Lawrence's unique career has earned him a National Medal Of Arts , election to the National Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design,a National Council of the Arts commisionership, and dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. His paintings has been freatured in several major art exhibitions and many different museums. Lawrence's parents came from the south but they moved to Harlem where Lawrence grew up. Lawrence was born in 1917 and grew up in Harlem during the Great Depression. He had many extraordinary educational oppurtunities as well as his first employment as an artist. In the studio of his mentor, Charles Alston, young Lawrence painted while the Harlem Renaissance was blooming with a generation of young artists and writers. He studied at the Harlem Art Workshop from 1932-1937 and at the American Artists School from 1937-1939. In the 1930's there was two main art groups,realism art and abstractionism art. Lawrence rejected both of them and made up his own style of art. His paintings are alive with human figures, usually African Americans,engaged in all different types of activities. He dipicted the figures in his paintings with dignity and grace. He got his ideas from several different sources. He used repetitive paterns and a lot of different colors and design which are commonly found in a quilt or an African textile. He made up to as many as 60 paintings which are each telling a story and the messages are usually of human triumph over oppression and injustice. Although his paintings often relate to the history and experience of black people their themes are universal. Lawrence allso made murals for his story telling. Throughout most of the 20th century , art institutions within black communities were the only places that exhibited the work of black artists. If other galleries did have black exhibits they were singled out as "Negro artists" or "Negro Art". Without gallery exposure, they were rarely noticed by influential people or obtain appropriate prices. In 1941 Alain Locke, a friend of Lawrence's introduced Lawrence's Migration series to the owner New York's Downtown Gallery Edith Halpert. Edith immediately organized an exhibition for Lawrence's art work, and Lawrence joined the select few group of artists she presented, which included Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, and Ben Shahn. Lawrence's Migration series was purchased and divided between the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillip's Collection.
“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...
As a young child growing up, James Baldwin experienced many hardships. He battled through social segregation and had a hard time finding a place where he truly fit in. Although since he knew what he loved in life and pursued that one goal, he was able to over come the hatred of his peers. This story of his life can be seen through a short story written by Baldwin himself, which is “Sonny’s Blues.” Sonny, the main character of the story, exemplifies many of the qualities and traits that Baldwin had in his younger years. Sonny and Baldwin lacked a true father figure, had a difficult time fitting in as black men, and also had an addiction that made life that much harder. Baldwin himself wasn’t actually addicted to drugs like Sonny but he was a homosexual, and the hardships that came with this equal what Sonny had to go through with his family and friends.