Sonny's Blues And The Glass Menagerie Essay

Wali 1
Amad Wali
Prof. Shimkin
EN 102
11-10-2012

In the play, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and the short story, Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, we find two characters faced with very different situations and choices, requiring both to take a decision to either accept the conditions as they exist or accept the responsibility to change them. “Tom Wingfield, Amanda winfield’s son. And the narrator of the play. A poet with a job in a warehouse. His nature is not remorseless , but to escape from a trap he has to
act without pity.” He struggles with choosing between his own personal dreams versus accepting the reality of his families situation. “Look! I’ve got no thing, no single thing in my life that I can call my OWN! Everything is… yesterday you confiscated my books! “. Tom feels confined because of Amanda’s restrictions on his life. “House, house! Who pays rent on it, who makes a slave of himself to”. As a provider of the family Tom uses hyperbole to emphasize the overwhelming sense of imprisonment he feels. "Listen! You think I’m crazy about the warehouse? [He bends fiercely toward her slight figure.] You think I’m in love with Continental Shoemakers? You think that I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that – celotex interior! with—fluorescent—tubes! Look! I’d rather somebody packed up a crowbar and battered out my brains—than go back mornings! I go! Every time you come in yelling that Goddamn ‘Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine!’ I say to myself, ‘How lucky dead people are!’ But I get up. I go! For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self—self’s all I ever think of! Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where he is—GONE! [He points to his Wali 2 father’s picture.] As far as the system of transportation reaches!” Tom, again uses hyperbole to emphasize the overwhelming sense of imprisonment he feels.
“Where have you been all this time?” “I have been to the movies.” “All this time at the movies.” "There was a very long program. There was a Garbo picture and a Mickey Mouse and a travelogue and a newsreel and a preview of coming attractions. And there was an organ solo and a collection for the Milk Fund—simultaneously—which ended up in a terrible fight between a fat lady and an usher!" While having a conversation with his mother, Tom uses the movies as a means of escape from reality. "But why—why, Tom—are you always so restless? Where do you go to, nights? "I—go to the movies." "Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?" "I go to the movies because—I like adventure. Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies." His life lacks of certain adventures, so he uses movies to escape from the confines of his daily goings-on. Instead of accepting the fact that he is the only man and also the only provider in the family, he chooses to run away from responsibilities and wander in day
dreams. A similar situation takes place in Sonny’s Blues. As the story opens, an unnamed narrator reads in a newspaper about the arrest of his brother Sonny for using and selling heroin. This unnerving revelation causes him to think back to their childhood, when Sonny was "wild, but he wasn't crazy." Since this short story is from a first person point of view, we do not have much chose but to only know the thoughts of the person telling the story. This perspective is very limited and can come to only so much of an acknowledgement. This story is not only about Sonny and his blues, but it also reveals the perspective of the narrator, his brother and his changed thoughts about Sonny. The narrator speaks, “I was scared, scared for Sonny. He became real to me again.” He has not spoken to his brother, Sonny in years, and never really had a close bonding with him either.