In Bebe Moore Campbell’s, You’re Blues Ain’t Like Mine, I was able to view the novel from the three main sociological perspectives: the structural-functionalist approach, the social-conflict approach, and the symbolic-interaction approach. From the structural-functionalist point of view, I analyzed the Honorable Men of Hopewell as the power elite. I viewed Mamie Cox’s understanding of social class from the social-conflict perspective, and Doreen and Lily Cox differences were easily seen through the symbolic-interaction approach. By examining the characters and situations from these three important perspectives, I was able to have a better understanding of the novel and the life of the people in which the novel was based.
First, the structural-functionalist approach allowed me to better view the Honorable Men of Hopewell and their extensive power in the Delta. John J. Macionis defines this perspective as a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability (Macionis: 11). The Honorable Men of Hopewell are in charge of making all of the important economic decisions. “We’re deciding the future of this great state, and that’s your future too, son (Campbell: 108).” This comment was said by Stonewall Pinochet, the leader of this powerful group of men. Stonewall was one of the wealthiest men in the state of Mississippi and had a major reputation to uphold. He was the leader of the legacy. The Honorable Men of Hopewell were not voted in but merely selected because of their great-grandfather’s prestige. “As was the custom, the mayor hadn’t been invited to the meeting but would be apprised at a later time of any public policy decisions stemming from it, if it was deemed politic to do so. Mayor Renfro was merely one in a series of figurehead politicians; the real power of the region was gathered in this smoke-filled room (Campbell: 108).” This quote from the novel is an example of just how powerful these men were.
Janet’s scandalous history as the mixed child of Olivia Carteret’s father and his servant Julia is symbolic of the racial conflict between black and white people of the time; Janet
Baldwin, James. "Sonny's Blues." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction Poetry, and Drama. 7th edition. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 272-295.
A captivating tale of a relationship between two troubling brothers in Harlem, "Sonny's Blues" is told from the perception of Sonny's brother, whose name is never mentioned. Baldwin's choice of Sonny's brother as a narrator is what makes "Sonny's Blues" significant in terms of illustrating the relationship and emotional complications of Sonny and his brother. The significance of "Sonny's Blues" lies in the way Sonny's brother describes their relationship based on what he observes, hears, and feels, and how he struggles trying to understand Sonny through the course of the story. This is a story of how two African Americans brothers take their own path through life as they struggle to find meaning in their lives.
James Baldwin, author of Sonny’s Blues, was born in Harlem, NY in 1924. During his career as an essayist, he published many novels and short stories. Growing up as an African American, and being “the grandson of a slave” (82) was difficult. On a day to day basis, it was a constant battle with racial discrimination, drugs, and family relationships. One of Baldwin’s literature pieces was Sonny’s Blues in which he describes a specific event that had a great impact on his relationship with his brother, Sonny. Having to deal with the life-style of poverty, his relationship with his brother becomes affected and rivalry develops. Conclusively, brotherly love is the theme of the story. Despite the narrator’s and his brother’s differences, this theme is revealed throughout the characters’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and dialogue. Therefore, the change in the narrator throughout the text is significant in understanding the theme of the story. It is prevalent to withhold the single most important aspect of the narrator’s life: protecting his brother.
With all three of these aspects of racism in consideration, race was a prevalent theme in the book that couldn’t escape the reader’s consciousness. Whether it was through showing the division of the communities, or through the feelings that each race held about the other race, the book portrays the history of racism in America.
In “Revelation” by Flannery O’Connor, the fictional main character Ruby divides people in society by both their racial and socioeconomic positions. In other nonfiction division and classification stories the authors divide and classify chance, inanimate objects, and the types of people who eat food off of other people’s plates. “Revelation” differs from nonfiction division and classification because in addition to creating a division and classification system, it also shows the effect the system has on the narrator and those who surround her.
The ideology of superior classes roots itself in this novel as Janie initially judges people based on their social position. Grammar and slang stand out as it acts as
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison weaves stories of violation and hardship to examine the ugliness that racism produces. In this novel, the childhood icons of white culture are negative representations instrumental in engendering internalized racism. For the black child in a racist, white culture, these icons are never innocent. Embodying the ideals of white beauty, they expose the basis for Claudia's bewilderment at why she is not attractive and Pecola's desperate desire for beauty. They nourish neither innocent desire, nor the need for acceptance, but denigrate the very idea of blackness. The worship of ideal white beauty, by adults as well as by children, coalesces into a communal neglect of self esteem, foregrounding ugliness as a key element of internalized racism.
In Baldwin, James’ narrative titled Sonny’s Blues the theme of hopelessness is found throughout the text, and is developed just at the start of the chapter as the teacher leaves the train station, deep in thought. The teacher was shocked with what he had read in the papers about his brother who had been arrested for drug peddling. His heart is heavy because he is not sure if he will see his brother again and deep down he feels that he has let his mother down in looking after his brother Sonny. The trend comes as a sign of hopelessness and despair because people who are from higher social classes could only be worried about which prominent lawyer to hire to take on the case or what private schools to send their children to. Hopelessness is further displayed as the teacher ponders that his brother, Sonny, had started using drugs when at the same age
To demonstrate, according to the narrator in Sonny's Blues by Mr. Baldwin, we discover the constant struggle of the normative expectations of today’s society to continue education after high school, the influences of racism, and the harsh outcomes of addiction can do to a person who simply wants to live the life they dream of. Therefore, with these amounts of harsh struggles that anyone in sonny’s position goes through can lead anyone to the deep line of hardships, struggles, and mental/emotional breakdowns. Additionally, in the position of Sonny’s, he had to endure these harsh struggles of life with the constant belittlement of the narrator, his environment, and the people around him, which lead to his own self-destruction “All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness.”(Baldwin 561-562). Important to realize, due to all of these struggles, many individuals could not imagine how anyone could survive a daily lifestyle like this, but due to sonny, many individuals grow a better understanding of what a youngster in the deepest forms of poverty from Harlem, New York goes through on a daily
In James Baldwin 's short story "Sonny 's Blues" is set off as the narrator reads the newspaper and finds out his younger brother, Sonny has been arrested for a drug-related crime. The news has a definite effect on the narrator as he tries to go about his day as an Algebra teacher. The narrator tries to understand how this could have happened and analyzes Sonny 's character when he was young. The narrator will begin to put the pieces gradually together as the story progresses with flashbacks and time leading to communications with his brother. In this story, Baldwin suggests many inherent factors to human nature and how the status of a brother or citizen in a society can deeply influence the experience.
Sonny’s Blues paints us a very unsettling but clear picture of what it was like growing up in Harlem circa 1950 and earlier. The housing projects that these brothers grew up in were “rocks in the middle of a boiling sea” (p. 297) ,it is ugly and dangerous. Our narrator tells how it's like an animal trap, if you make it out alive you’ll be missing a part of you. Children living in such environments are forced to grow up so fast for survival, they see movies and read books about all the wonderful things in life, but shortly
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
America has often been thought as the “land of opportunities”, however, the majority of the people who enjoy those opportunities are light skin Americans. Even after the civil war, African Americans suffered socially. An example of how Africans Americans suffer socially is found in Sonny’s Blues. The narrator, a teacher in Harlem, has escaped the ghetto, creating a stable and secure life for himself despite the destructive pressures that he sees destroying so many young blacks. He sees African American adolescents discovering
The Color Purple gives us Mr. ______, whose harsh, objectifying treat-ment of Celie is later something his son, Harpo, tries to emulate. Indeed, Mr. ______’s advice to Harpo is to beat Sofia into submission: “Nothing can do better than a good sound beating.” (Walker 35). This manifestation of violence is not only recurring in structure, but its repetitiveness is a result of the characters’ actions within the narrative; it illustrates gender violence as a taught behaviour. This commentary on sexism as a sort of social inheritance is also applied to racism within the novel, exemplified when Sofia tells Eleanor Jane her son will grow up to be racist, as he is being brought up in a racist society. This shows a different kind of oppressive legacy, one that is not instilled by the parents—as in Harpo’s case—but rather one that is present in society, despite Eleanor Jane’s insistence she “won’t let him be mean to colored [folk]” (Walker 266). In this manner, The Color Purple presents both a character-specific and a systemic analysis of sys-tems of oppression that are reaffirmed by their narrative structure. Walker puts forth a social the-ory in which systems of oppression are cyclical in nature and reinforces it by presenting it through a narrative that is ipso facto cyclical in