Donald Murray, in “Complicated and Simple”, talks about how the author is emphasizing “man's need to find his identity” as the main issue society as well as Sonny and his brother are dealing with throughout the story. The area of Harlem with all its negative influences tend to affect its children's upcoming. Either to take the difficult route of finding one's self or to fall in the drug trap of Harlem “ it's simpler to submerge oneself, at the most dismal level, the limbo of drug addiction, rather than to truly find oneself” ( Murray 353).…
Anthony Brandt, an expert editor, once said, “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” Although all people are separate from each other in multiple ways, one thing is true: family shapes who you are and will become. Because of this, one can never truly “run away” from family, as they remain a part of whom one has become. The two passages The Rich Brother by Tobias Wolff and Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin tell a story of two different brothers who have grown to be seemingly opposites of each other who end up together years later due to separate life choices. Both stories argue that disparity in childhood leads to conflict; however, siblings always eventually come back to one another, whether good or bad.…
The short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin exposes and explores many social and internal issues. The story is told by an unnamed, self-loathing narrator living in Harlem during the middle of the 20th century. He is an everyday family man and school teacher who does not like to expose his emotions and the pain that he’s dealt with in his life. Much of this pain has come from his brother Sonny, the main character in the story. Sonny is a long-time heroin addict that has just recently been released from prison, and his brother feels as though he has had something to do with Sonny’s addiction. I believe that this feeling could come from the fact that even though they both have come from the same racially-oppressed…
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is about two brothers, Sonny and the unnamed narrator. The story chronicles a part of their lives. It begins with Sonny’s drug arrest. The tale then travels back to Sonny’s teenage years and ends up with Sonny living with his brother after his arrest. The story uses imagery throughout the tale. One of the most used is that of the contrast of light and darkness. This becomes the theme of the story. Even though Sonny has struggled with a drug problem and arrest readers may wonder who is in more darkness.…
James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” exemplifies suffering as the major theme depicted through the struggle of two brothers as they try to understand one another. Baldwin’s underlying message deals with the hardships that African-Americans endured through the mid twentieth century, a time when race determined your status in society.…
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story by the author James Baldwin. It is a story about two brothers and `their severe struggles in Harlem and the different ways in which they handled them. The author shows through the narrator and his brother Sonny how two individuals can follow two totally different life paths, be distant for most of their lives, but in the end find common ground through a shared understanding of the pain of human struggle, which this case expressed by Jazz. Through giving the main character specific character traits, the author shapes the central conflict that gives meaning to the story. The central conflict follows the formula person vs. self, because the narrator struggles between feeling the desire to take care of Sonny and the impulse to throwing Sonny to the curb because of his always values and bad decisions. The narrator starts to realize many things starting after the death of his daughter Grace and culminating with him finally listening to his brother play music. The central idea resolves it self by the Narrator empathizing with his brothers struggles in life and finally understanding through Sonny’s music how he dealt with that suffering. This allows him to realize that he must embrace the conflicting nature of his feelings for Sonny and that the bonds of brotherhood should transcend these things.…
James Baldwin’s authorial attitude in “Sonny’s Blues” represents his view that in order to escape the metaphorical darkness and reach the light, Sonny must strike a balance between his personal lightness and darkness. James Baldwin uses powerful diction and the narration of Sonny’s escape to prove this.…
According to Literature: A Portable Anthology theme is “the central idea embodied by or explored by a literary work” (1360). Many times in life humans experience hardships that affect their journey to success. Sometimes these hardships negatively impact how one determines their ability to become successful. This often times leads to one seeking advice from their peers. While some peers may give advice leaving people open to options, others may try to impose their idea of successfulness on them. “Sonny’s Blues” demonstrates that hardships do not deter success.…
James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” displays a lot of take to heart messages that we could learn from. Throughout this story we got a firsthand look at what a teenager’s life in Harlem looks like. It is told from the perspective of Sonny’s younger brother who is an algebra teacher in high school. Towards the beginning of the reading the narrator expresses concern about the root issue contributing to Sonny’s problems; Horse, otherwise known as Heroin. He states “I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn’t have been much older than these boys now”, (Baldwin 22). This sentence makes a wide-spread drug problem in their community evident. As any writer does Baldwin…
James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is a story about two brothers who grow apart and reunite after many struggles. The narrator, Sonny’s brother, tells the story through his point of view regarding their issues, heartache, and finally their acceptance. The brother has the knowledge of the past from his mother that helps to shape the story and makes his point of view credible. His point of view, knowledge of the past, and his own experiences help to give the reader clarity of the overall meaning.…
Baldwin’s choice of the motifs of music and shaking or trembling reveal and reinforce the theme that life is full of suffering and show that Sonny has control of his and other people’s suffering by using those motifs to show the control in which Sonny has recently gained.…
Racism is one of the world’s most horrible problems. Racism is one race seeing another race as infernal to their race or seeing their race as weak. Some white racist were harsh to the African American race because of their skin being colored during the 1800s. Some white sees the African American race as "non-human." Racism can be to any race. In the story "Sonny's Blues" the narrator's uncle got killed by a car crashing into him. The people that hit his uncle were white drunk men although they didn’t mean to do it they drove away when they crashed into him. Those white men didn’t really care what happened to his uncle those white people; left him for death. In the story “Sonny’s Blues” James Baldwin argues that race limits what…
Sonny’s Blues shows a theme of salvation, or being saved. Not only do the two brothers need salvation from the world but they need salvation from their inner beings as well. Their world is filled with drugs, imprisonment, and the evil that resides around them. Salvation comes in many forms in this short story. The narrator is haunted by the thought of not responding to his brother, a failure that continues to haunt him because he denied all his obligations to his brother, Sonny and his dying mother. Also the death of the narrator’s daughter, Grace, is actually a form of salvation. It makes the narrator write a letter to his brother in search of forgiveness. This serves as salvation for Sonny who had just got out of jail, and wants to be…
In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, a brother named Sonny was arrested for using and selling drugs. The narrator is the older brother of Sonny who finds out he’s in jail through the newspaper, he had not spoken to him in years. After Sonny’s release from prison, he moves in with his older brother and for a period of time they both attempt to deal with each other. Drugs had taken over most of Sonny’s life mainly because of his father’s personality, his neglecting brother and the harsh living environment.…
In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, the main idea is: the obligation towards brotherly love. The short story expresses this idea through the use of strong characterization, focusing on Sonny and his older brother, and their life together. This short story is meaningful with several emotional experiences that are heart-breaking and life changing. Taking place in Harlem, the story describes the relationship of two brothers, the narrator and Sonny, and their different and similar ways for coping with the African American struggles of that time.…