Preview

Case Study: Sonny's Obstacles

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
113 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Case Study: Sonny's Obstacles
Tammy, I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that Sonny’s father was an obstacle in Sonny following his dream to build a rocket. Although Mr. Hickman was resistant in Sonny not following in his steps, he did continue to support him in some ways. Even though Sonny did not become an engineer in the coal mines, I believe Mr. Hickman eventually opened up to the idea of Sonny pursuing his dream.
In response to the other obstacle, I also thought supplies was an issue. Sonny and his friends became very resourceful in raising money to fund their rocket projects. I was nice to see how the community involvement impacted the Rocket Boys success.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Often in novels, the author is able to personify and use the setting as an imperative aspect of a story such that it could almost take the form of a character. For Homer Hickam Jr. (Sonny), Coalwood was not only his hometown, but it became his motivation to continue building and launching his rockets. Every house in Coalwood was occupied with families of coal miners, and for someone to participate in another activity besides football was rare and often discouraged. “Only coal mining was more important in Coalwood than high school football. Sputnik, and anything else, was going to always come in a distant third” (Hickam Jr. 27). It was known that if a male student didn’t receive a football scholarship, than they were either going to join the…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    His father put his rockets out in the rain, he forbid him from shooting rockets in town. Whatever his father threw at him to stop him Sonny would find away to keep his rockets flying. His Mother and Mrs.Riley and his friends were by him through all the disappointment from the town. The bullying at school did not keep him from flying rockets.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Characters In “Sonny’s blues” represent a wide range about human nature. For example, Sonny is a character with very non serious sense of humor and he is drug addict his brother (narrator) is character with good sense of humor and he was not drug addict. Sonny is the musician But he cared mostly about himself and not about the nation but narrator he cared about the nation and place where he was more then just himself. Furthermore most of the other people in Harlem were drug addicts and had no reason to live, this is the reason why Sonny wanted to leave Harlem just…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sonny And Kany Comparison

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages

    To avoid going to the mine, of course, Sonny would need to achieve his goals, and in order to do so, he had to teach himself calculus when his school did not allow him to take the class, rocketry and chemistry, so that the rockets would launch, increasing the chances of recognition of the rocket club, but most of all, he needed to learn that, in the words of Wernher von Braun, “If you work hard enough, you will do anything you want,” even escape Coalwood and become a NASA scientist, which is ultimately what Sonny did. Evidently, both Lily and Sonny led by example, becoming the masters of their fates when they were unsatisfied with the lives others had laid out for…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The brothers appear to be completely different people throughout the story but nearing its end, Sonny’s brother finally begins to understand Sonny’s bizarre ways. Sonny’s brother seems to be living a sound life on the outside, but soon realizes that he has been suppressing the suffering he has endured in his lifetime. Having lost his uncle, mother and father already, Sonny is dealing with the recent…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator of this story is Sonny’s brother. He knows the most about all the family and is best suited for telling the story. The brother is the one Mama told about their uncle and father’s tragic event. She tells him this so that he will take care of Sonny. This being said, he feels obligated to Sonny and his endeavors throughout life. His obligation is more of a guardian role than a brother. The brother’s knowledge of this event…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    troubles of life left him with no choice as it seemed to him to be lead down this road. Sonny soon found himself alone without the…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The series of events leading to Sonny getting back into the real world is really a struggle for him. He tries to find out who he really is and what he should be doing with his life, however along the way it’s not as easy as he would like. With external forces trying to tell him what he should do, such as: His brother, his Mother, and his sister in law’s Mother. His older brother allows him to stay with him until he graduates from…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The narrator states, “ I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in Earth[...]And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death it can live forever (47).” Sonny uses his blues as his personal form of expression. His blues gives back the memories he grips so that it can still feel alive though, it may be gone it will never be forgotten. Sonny’s music helps his brother understand his choice to be musician. It also gives his brother the gift of being able to see his mother's face again, to feel the hard times his mother encountered in her life, to see the road where his grandfather had died, and also he to see his daughter again, as well as feeling his wife's tears again (47-48). Sonny's blues weren't just blues, the idea of his blues being much more than that is expressed as he let go of his feelings it brought back the impossible feelings and images that were once gone for his brother. Under this circumstance, the narrator finally realized Sonny’s way of communicating was through his blues and all he had to do was listen. All along he wanted Sonny to go to school and become his perception of someone though, Sonny told him plenty of times he knew what he wanted to do. What he didn't realize was that he just needed to listen as seen in the line “he would never be free until…

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sonny's Blues Vs Find

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The strategy of having Sonny's brother tell the story shows us that his attitude and negative feelings and disapproval of his brother changes as the story progresses. The story starts off with Sonny's brother's finding out that Sonny had been arrested for heroin, and his anger and shame is clearly displayed. When Sonny made the decision to wanting to be a jazz musician, he worked at it seriously and studiously. When he was living with his sister-in-law's family while studying music, for example, they said that the amount of determination he had to jazz music was so heartfelt "it wasn't like living with a person at all, it was like living with sound." However, as the story progresses, at the end of the story that the brother begins to understands and realize something of the massive appeal of jazz music to his brother by when finally the narrator goes to the club where his brother plays to hear him the first time, he sees how his feelings towards his brother had been wrong and was prejudiced as shown by his own feelings when he listens to the type of music his brother plays. While listening to his brother play he goes on to describe his feelings “I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two actually end up getting in a couple of fights while they are separated . Towards the end of the story , Sonny and the narrator make up and Sonny ends up moving in with the narrator . Sonny is a musician and invites the narrator to come watch him play jazz one night . The narrator takes him up on his offer and comes to see Sonny perform . While at the show , the narrator figures out what Sonny is really made of and how he is as a person as well as a musician . This is the final stage of development that we can see both the narrator and Sonny develop into something better than before .…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sonny's Hard Work

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages

    As Sonny’s dreams become a reality he turns into a more modest person. He realizes that his hard work has paid off, as well as everyone from Coalwood’s work. They are half of the reason he is successful. They made his materials, helped him with the funds, and supported the Rocket Boys through it all. Sonny had a lot of up and downs emotionally throughout his adventure. He took advantage of his friends and the people willing to help him at Coalwood at first, and then they grew to want to help him.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    sonny

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages

    With the classroom dark and the students hushed A Bronx Tale begins to play on the overhead TV. The loud catchy tunes of the do-op music in the Belmont neighborhood and the colorful cars and dusty alleys flash before the screen taking us all into a different world- something only movies and books can let us do. Calogero, who begins the movie as a young boy, we are quickly introduced to, and it becomes quit clear he will be playing the role as the protagonist throughout the film. It is through Calogero that we are then taken through the town of Belmont and meet all the drastically unique and colorful characters that make up his town. The one he puts real emphasis and recognition on hinting to us he will surely have a role in the films near future is Sonny, the town’s gangster, and who we would easily identify as the towns highest ranked man on the social ladder.…

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During further education I was selected alongside other pupil’s to participate as a team member for the 2010 Eureka Rocket Challenge, based at The University of Birmingham. This involved schools from around the region, where participants took part in the two day event to develop an existing product to market in another country. This event also raised funds for my Sixth form as my team managed to succeed as the winning team against 12 other teams throughout Birmingham.…

    • 300 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Children are rebellious; it is part of childhood to rebel against parents or guardian. Through rebellion process, a child must go through challenge of their beliefs, enduring influences, acceptance and understanding. By analyzing characters from the stories about rebellion, I realize that one does not simply rebel to disappoint others; it is more of a misery than having an understanding of one another. In the story "Sonny's Blue" by James Baldwin, Sonny struggle to find what he truly is and what he wants to be, with the inevitable interference of his brother's logical approach on how he raise him. Sonny finds himself lock between his dreams and reality that sets him off to rebel against his brother. Similarly rebellious but different in bearings, Jing Mei from "Two kinds", by Amy Tan, is a distressed child that tries to be understood by her mother. Jing Mei is imprisoned by her mother's high expectation that led her irresistible misbehavior towards her mother’s chain of fate to her. Rebellion does not entirely cause people a disaster, it is a battle of opposing beliefs between people, and especially children must go through this act of self-confrontation to be able to find their own selves. Finding who we really are needs a lot of effort, through rebellion we can definitely prove to anyone what we really believe in, and for better or worse we can see what we have become.…

    • 1915 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays