Sonny's Blues Reflection
The most interesting part and certainly my favorite part of Sonny’s Blues was the style. The language was sophisticated but not necessarily out of place for the narrator and the context. The author had a way of describing non visual situations with such imagery that you almost imagined it. For example, when he described the darkness you could visualize the whole symbolic situation like a surrealist painting. I thought it was very impressive. His writing style was almost like good music where you aren’t really sure why it makes you feel so much but it does. I think it’s at least ironic if not symbolic that the story is about music.
The structure of the story was another thing a found interesting. The structure made you feel as though someone
was telling you story and need to remind of event not as they happened but as they were remembered. I thought this was very telling of human storytelling and though processes. When we experience life we mix our past with our perception of the present. These perceptions would be out of context and completely different without these flashbacks. For our narrator, the story is a mix of the past and present with jumps in the timeline. It is a way of lingering on the important parts of the story. Some pieces of the story were dragged on without incident immediately followed by long skips. For example, in the beginning of the story we linger on that first day. We even linger of that first train ride. It isn’t until the second paragraph that we finally realize what the narrator is reading exactly and it is not until the next page that we discover who Sonny really is to the narrator. The overall structure make you feel as if you are going on this journey with the narrator or you are being told this story by a close friend.
Another significant piece of the story was that the narrator is never named. I think this is symbolic of the selfless nature of the narrator. Sonny’s name is mentioned many times throughout the story however few other characters are named or at least named so often as Sonny. The narrator obviously has so much eventual appreciation and affection for his brother after the events of the story that the narrator felt Sonny’s was the only name that mattered. I think this extends the themes of the story itself. It’s very telling.
The structure of the story was another thing a found interesting. The structure made you feel as though someone
was telling you story and need to remind of event not as they happened but as they were remembered. I thought this was very telling of human storytelling and though processes. When we experience life we mix our past with our perception of the present. These perceptions would be out of context and completely different without these flashbacks. For our narrator, the story is a mix of the past and present with jumps in the timeline. It is a way of lingering on the important parts of the story. Some pieces of the story were dragged on without incident immediately followed by long skips. For example, in the beginning of the story we linger on that first day. We even linger of that first train ride. It isn’t until the second paragraph that we finally realize what the narrator is reading exactly and it is not until the next page that we discover who Sonny really is to the narrator. The overall structure make you feel as if you are going on this journey with the narrator or you are being told this story by a close friend.
Another significant piece of the story was that the narrator is never named. I think this is symbolic of the selfless nature of the narrator. Sonny’s name is mentioned many times throughout the story however few other characters are named or at least named so often as Sonny. The narrator obviously has so much eventual appreciation and affection for his brother after the events of the story that the narrator felt Sonny’s was the only name that mattered. I think this extends the themes of the story itself. It’s very telling.