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Themes, symbols and plot of “sonny’s blues” essay
Themes, symbols and plot of “sonny’s blues” essay
Literary analysis of sonny's blues
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In most short stories the entire plot progress within one area. The local and global settings do not change, but “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a little different. “Sonny’s Blues” follows an unnamed protagonist trying to reconnect with his younger brother Sonny, who struggles with heroin addiction. In the story, the Global setting of Harlem stays the same while the local varies from scene to scene. These changes in setting aren’t accidental. This was a conscious decision by Baldwin and it is the job of the reader to understand why the changes in the setting matter. The multiple local settings of the story are used to express mood, theme, and symbolism. The first setting introduced in the story is a subway. The subway is where the narrator gets the news that Sonny has been arrested. The gloomy atmosphere of the subway adds to the narrator’s sense of dread. The third line of paragraph one reads, “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside.” The theme of darkness is also mentioned and reoccurs throughout the text. From there the local setting shifts to a high school classroom, where the narrator reflects on the news and reminds himself what Sonny has done. In the third and …show more content…
This time the setting is inside of a taxi. The brothers finally met in person for the first time in over a year. The both of them are anxious yet excited the catch up with one another. During the taxi ride, the protagonist reflects on how the Harlem has changed since childhood. In the first line of paragraph sixty-nine the protagonist says “Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animal amputate a leg and leave it in the trap.” What did Sonny and his brother leave behind? When looking at their relationship, the taxi ride is symbolic of the brothers moving forward in their efforts to
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.
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" a pair of brothers try to make sense of the urban decay that surrounds and fills them. This quest to puzzle out the truth of the shadows within their hearts and on the streets takes on a great importance. Baldwin meets his audience at a halfway mark: Sonny has already fallen into drug use, and is now trying to return to a clean life with his brother's aid. The narrator must first attempt to understand and make peace with his brother's drug use before he can extend his help and heart to him. Sonny and his brother both struggle for acceptance. Sonny wants desperately to explain himself while also trying to stay afloat and out of drugs. Baldwin amplifies these struggles with a continuous symbolic motif of light and darkness. Throughout "Sonny's Blues" there is a pervasive sense of darkness which represents the reality of life on the streets of Harlem. The darkness is sometimes good but usually sobering and sometimes fearful, just as reality may be scary. Light is not simply a stereotypical good, rather it is a complex consciousness, an awareness of the dark, and somehow, within that knowledge there lies hope. Baldwin's motif of light and darkness in "Sonny's Blues" is about the sometimes painful nature of reality and the power gained from seeing it.
The opening paragraph of the story contains a metaphorical passage: "I stared at it in the swinging light of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside"(349). This reference is significant because it is a contrast to the dismal society that the narrator and his brother Sonny live in. The darkness is the portrayal of the community of Harlem that is trapped, in their surroundings by physical, economic, and social barriers. The obvious nature of darkness has overcome the occupants of the Harlem community. The narrator, an algebra teacher, observes a depressing similarity between his students and his brother, Sonny. This is true because the narrator is fearful for his students falling into a life of crime and drugs, as did his brother. The narrator notes that the cruel realities of the streets have taken away the possible light from the lives of his brother and his students. The narrator makes an insightful connection between the darkness that Sonny faced and the darkness that the young boys are presently facing. This is illustrated in the following quote:
"Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna Sheets-Nesbitt. Vol. 33. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. 115-157. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. Web. 3 May 2015.
All three of these symbolical details are woven together in "Sonny's Blues" to create a non-literal meaning directly beneath the words. The end result is an enriched message about urban struggles for expression, happiness, and chemical independance. Ultimately, Sonny's revival concludes the readers' literary tour of world in which he lives. What is begun with a presentation of hardships is finally concluded with Sonny's triumph, a chance at a better future.
The story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a story about people’s actions and the effect that they have on the environment and the people around them. The Narrator is the older brother and the keeper of Sonny after his mother passes away. It is his duty to watch over his younger brother and to help guide him through life and to make the correct decisions. This caused great distress for him because he was never able to control Sonny and the life that he chooses to live. Sonny is The Narrators brother and is a dynamic character who decides early on what he wants to do with his life. This creates a constant tug of war with his brother which ends with him denouncing his brother and they also ceased talking for a long time. Sonny is also addicted
When identifying the common theme of Baldwin’s short stories “Sonny’s Blues” and “Going to Meet the Man”, it is clever to first distinguish the writing style of this creative author. Baldwin was a famous writer of his period because of the way he interpreted reality into a story. Around this point in America, racial tension and self-identity between cultures were at a peak and sparked many different ideas towards Baldwin’s writings. Baldwin intentionally expresses himself through his writings to create a realistic voice to his audience, making the story easy to capture a visual of. In one story in particular, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” Baldwin creates a novel
He chose to distance himself from his brother and was able to escape the dark streets of Harlem, going onto college and becoming an educator. He had in a way taken on a different identity and was no longer familiar with the true struggles that Sonny and the other African Americans in Harlem faced; nor the culture that he once was raised.
Sonny’s brother and him finally decided to reconcile when Gracie, Sonny’s niece, passed away at a young age. The brothers wrote back and forth and one thing became clear to Sonny’s brother, music affected him. Sonny’s brother always saw the music/jazz scene as an unhealthy lifestyle full of drugs and scandal. The only thing Sonny would really reinforce was that it was not because of the music. Sonny came back to New York after rehab from heroin and came to see the old neighborhood in Harlem. The brothers see that they have so much to be thankful for and that they will always have each other.
Discuss place and how James Baldwin uses elements of setting to convey Sonny’s Blues’ larger message or theme.
The first of these occurs on page 124, just after Sonny's older brother learns of Sonny's arrest, when he spots one of Sonny's old friends from their younger days. Sonny's brother immediately expresses his disdain for this man, thinking “I'd never liked him. And now, even though he was a grown-up man, he still hung around that block, still spent hours on the street corners, was always high and raggy. … Now, abruptly, I hated him.” In the aftermath of Sonny's drug-induced arrest, it is easy to understand why Sonny's brother would feel anger towards this person. However, he goes on to state “'don't tell me your sad story, if it was up to me, I'd give you one.' Then I felt guilty – guilty, probably, for never having supposed that the poor bastard had a story of his own, much less a sad one.” In this moment, Sonny's brother experiences a revelation that causes him to relate this man to his own brother, noting the parallels between the two. His newfound empathy allows him to view Sonny's friend in a completely new light, making an effort to understand how he ended up in such sad shape, rather than merely dismissing him as a lowlife. Sonny's brother realizes that any label he applies to this man could just as easily be cast on Sonny through the eyes of
James Baldwin's short story, "Sonny's Blues", tells the tale of two brothers, as they come to an understanding of each other. The use of imagery and figurative language can help the reader grasp a deeper meaning of what the narrator is focusing on. In "Sonny's Blues", the predominant imageries throughout the narrative are the reoccurring contrasting images of light and darkness, symbolizing hope and despair.
This is my first time to read “Sonny’s Blues”. I think the reason for this short fiction wrote successful is great in portray the character and story details. The author James Baldwin use great literary elements to depict the story’s develop. I want to analysis the title, plot and flashback use in this short fiction.
Sonny, seems to be having hard times in life. He has problems with drugs within the city and he has gone to jail. He believes that to better himself, he needs to leave the city. Within
The last four paragraphs of `Sonny's Blues' are written in what some people like to call `pencil' form. This means that they are almost interchangeable, they are written in a form where one paragraph could be before another and each could end the story. The order of them does not seem to matter so much as the meaning does. Which in itself shows how much is really packed into each paragraph. The end of this short story is told in a very common narrative form that tells exactly what happened detail by detail. Through the use of "then" as the first word in each paragraph, the narrator expresses to the audience what is happening exactly as it happens to him, piece by piece and feeling by feeling. This gives you a little insight into his psyche in a much more personal way than what an author usually attempts to convey with the word "I," and truly instills a bond between the reader and the narrator. You could almost say it makes you trust him and believe the rest of the story is true. Baldwin's utilization of personified description as well as the flow of his words make the piece read as if it actually was a jazz song by describing the feeling any person who has heard jazz knows. He leaves enough ambiguousness to really make you feel the music through the words, yet gives as mu...