Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Sonny blues full story
Sonny blues full story
Sonny's blues summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Sonny’s Blues is a story describing how two brothers are trying to overcome difficult situations they are experiencing in their lives. The narrator, who chooses to remain anonymous in the entire story attempts to overcome the stereotypes and racism of African-Americans, as well as, his reservations about his brother’s career choice and drug use. Although the author describes his brother’s past life before he began abusing drugs, the greater part of the story focuses on the substance use by African Americans living in poor towns and the effects of drug use on the families and individuals. More precisely, the author puts several arguments concerning the drug use and its effects forwards. One major point that Baldwin attempted to put forward through …show more content…
At first, when the narrator discovered about Sonny’s substance use, he was hesitant but felt sick after hearing the whole revelation. For a fact, he had suspected that Sonny was a drug addict but tried to deny that fact by not attempting to find out the plain truth. He was angry, sad, and disappointed. However, after sometimes, he sent a letter to Sonny requesting him to create a time so that they can meet and hold some discussion. The narrator them informed Sonny about his children, wife and their progress. In particular, Sonny was told about the death of his niece who dead while Sonny was in jail. Upon arriving at the author's living place, Sonny discovered that although his elder nephew recognized him, the younger one could not. Apparently, this scenario explains that when individuals become addicted to any drug, they are only concerned with their feelings or needs. For a fact, it took Sonny to be detained and rehabilitated to eventually realize the emotional pain and sufferings that he has brought to his family. Precisely, not only had he caused emotional pain and suffering to them but also washed away their trust in him. The author continually considered frisking Sonny’s chamber for proof that he was using the drugs again. Imperatively, were it not for the
From the first lines of the story the reader gets the impression that Sonny’s brother tries to block out, ignore the truth about his brother and his troubles. The reaction the character has to the newspaper article about Sonny was: “It was not to be believed and I kept telling myself that” (Baldwin 292). At this stage his relations with the younger brother remind of the way a teacher walks across the playground full of potentially troubled kids “though he or she couldn’t wait to get out of that courtyard, to get those boys out of their sight and off their minds” (Baldwin 293). Having some suspicions concerning Sonny’s ...
Feeling the regret and pain, the narrator does not know what to do with Sonny. Not only is he dealing with Sonny’s arrest, his daughter
As "Sonny's Blues" opens, the narrator tells of his discovery that his younger brother has been arrested for selling and using heroin. Both brothers grew up in Harlem, a neighborhood rife with poverty and despair. Though the narrator teaches school in Harlem, he distances himself emotionally from the people who live there and their struggles and is somewhat judgmental and superior. He loves his brother but is distanced from him as well and judgmental of his life and decisions. Though Sonny needs for his brother to understand what he is trying to communicate to him and why he makes the choices he makes, the narrator cannot or will not hear what Sonny is trying to convey. In distancing himself from the pain of upbringing and his surroundings, he has insulated himself from the ability to develop an understanding of his brother's motivations and instead, his disapproval of Sonny's choice to become a musician and his choices regarding the direction of his life in general is apparent. Before her death, his mother spoke with him regarding his responsibilities to Sonny, telling him, "You got to hold on to your brother...and don't let him fall, no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you get with him...you may not be able to stop nothing from happening. But you got to let him know you're there" (87) His unwillingness to really hear and understand what his brother is trying to tell him is an example of a character failing to act in good faith.
First, the very sorrow that the characters in this story face is that of racial discrimination a form of darkness. It is noted in the very first paragraph “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness that roared outside.”(58) The setting of this story takes place in Harlem, New York. The city of Harlem is notoriously known for its inner city, poverty stricken population and mostly as a location in which to find African Americans. “These boys now, were living as we’d been living then they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.” (59). The story Sonny’s Blues was written in the 1950’s which clearly segregation was still indeed active and the African Americans were lynched by the darkness of their skin tone. In the 1950’s the chance of an African American becoming successful especially with coming from the ghetto was extremely low. In the time frame that presents itsel...
A.Freewrite: I am going to write about the point of view used in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin does not use Sonny as the narrator but instead uses his brother. I believe Baldwin used the brother as the narrator to give to give readers the idea that Sonny and his brother do not communicate well with each other. While Sonny listens but does not speak, his brother speaks but does not listen. Baldwin uses the brother as the narrator to highlight the idea that Sonny’s addiction to heroin, love of jazz music, and his melancholy are associated to Sonny’s lack of voice as well as control over his own life.
In "Sonny's Blues" James Baldwin presents an intergenerational portrait of suffering and survival within the sphere of black community and family. The family dynamic in this story strongly impacts how characters respond to their own pain and that of their family members. Examining the central characters, Mama, the older brother, and Sonny, reveals that each assumes or acknowledges another's burden and pain in order to accept his or her own situation within an oppressive society. Through this sharing each character is able to achieve a more profound understanding of his own suffering and attain a sharper, if more precarious, notion of survival.
The story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a story about people’s actions and the effect that they have on the environment and the people around them. The Narrator is the older brother and the keeper of Sonny after his mother passes away. It is his duty to watch over his younger brother and to help guide him through life and to make the correct decisions. This caused great distress for him because he was never able to control Sonny and the life that he chooses to live. Sonny is The Narrators brother and is a dynamic character who decides early on what he wants to do with his life. This creates a constant tug of war with his brother which ends with him denouncing his brother and they also ceased talking for a long time. Sonny is also addicted
In conclusion, “Sonny’s Blues” is the story of Sonny told through his brother’s perspective. It is shown that the narrator tries to block out the past and lead a good “clean” life. However, this shortly changes when Sonny is arrested for the use and possession of heroin. When the narrator starts talking to his brother again, after years of no communication, he disapproves of his brother’s decisions. However, after the death of his daughter, he slowly starts to transform into a dynamic character. Through the narrator’s change from a static to a dynamic character, readers were able to experience a remarkable growth in the narrator.
At first glance, "Sonny's Blues" seems ambiguous about the relationship between music and drugs. After all, the worlds of jazz and drug addiction are historically intertwined; it could be possible that Sonny's passion for jazz is merely an excuse for his lifestyle and addiction, as the narrator believes for a time. Or perhaps the world that Sonny has entered by becoming involved in jazz is the danger- if he had not encountered jazz he wouldn't have encountered drugs either. But the clues given by the portrayals of music and what it does for other figures in the story demonstrate music's beneficial nature; music and drugs are not interdependent for Sonny. By studying the moments of music interwoven throughout the story, it can be determined that the author portrays music as a good thing, the preserver and sustainer of hope and life, and Sonny's only way out of the "deep and funky hole" of his life in Harlem, with its attendant peril of drugs (414).
Drugs is one of the themes in this story that shows the impact of both the user and their loved ones. There is no doubt that heroin destroys lives and families, but it offers a momentary escape from the characters ' oppressive environment and serves as a coping mechanism to help deal with the human suffering that is all around him. Suffering is seen as a contributing factor of his drug addiction and the suffering is linked to the narrator’s daughter loss of Grace. The story opens with the narrator feeling ice in his veins when he read about Sonny’s arrest for possession of heroin. The two brothers are able to patch things up and knowing that his younger brother has an addiction. He still buys him an alcoholic drink at the end of the story because, he has accepted his brother for who he really is.
“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...
As a young child growing up, James Baldwin experienced many hardships. He battled through social segregation and had a hard time finding a place where he truly fit in. Although since he knew what he loved in life and pursued that one goal, he was able to over come the hatred of his peers. This story of his life can be seen through a short story written by Baldwin himself, which is “Sonny’s Blues.” Sonny, the main character of the story, exemplifies many of the qualities and traits that Baldwin had in his younger years. Sonny and Baldwin lacked a true father figure, had a difficult time fitting in as black men, and also had an addiction that made life that much harder. Baldwin himself wasn’t actually addicted to drugs like Sonny but he was a homosexual, and the hardships that came with this equal what Sonny had to go through with his family and friends.
Family structure is often built on foundations consisting of, trust, principal, and unconditional love. Relatives are often a reflection of the morals, and dignity our guardians instilled in us. The struggle in families arises when an individual does not live up to the standards set for them, by family, and sometimes results in incarceration, or use of narcotics. In “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, readers encounter two brothers who are brought up in the rough neighborhood of Harlem, New York. Although Sonny, the younger brother, chooses a different life path in heroin usage, and in being a musician, his older brother, the narrator, becomes an algebra teacher. Despite not being in each other’s lives for a period of time, the knitted fraternal relationship that they share proves to be eternal regardless of their loss of contact. Ultimately, this story is an amazing illustration of how two people are from the same blood and home, are never quite the same, yet the love of a family will always be kindled. In the following articles "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music, by Suzy Bernstein Goldman, explains how people often explain their emotions through music. In another article titled, -“ Black Literature Revisited: "’Sonny's Blues’" by Elaine R. Ognibene, she elaborates on the effects music has to bring two people together. Finally, in “The Jazz-Blues Motif in James Baldwin's "’Sonny's Blues’" by Richard N Albert discusses, the bound in families and enlightens on the cliché saying that blood is thicker than water. Ultimately, Albert provides the best interpretation of the short story “Sonny Blues,” because it’s more realistic and relatable from my own personal experience.
Ever heard of the Blues? This kind of genre originated in African American communities, which can be seen in Sonny’s Blues. Because this story took place after the Harlem renaissance, this kind of genre was one of the main points. The story talked about how Sonny is really into playing the blues and how it was the hook that bonded the narrator with his brother, Sonny. The two brothers had two different mindset on how to live life. Sonny adored playing the blues while the brother, which is the narrator, did not think it was something to listen to. Sonny and his brother were not really close for the entire story, but towards the climax many different feelings and new thoughts were generated in the narrators mind. In this story the narrator never wanted to hear his brother play, however, at the end after his daughter’s death occurred, the narrator changed his mind and gave the blues a chance. So he went with Sonny and listened
A place of poverty, depression and crime that you have to struggle in just to escape. Fully aware of what is happening and taking place within his community, the narrator tries so hard not to let his surrounding control him emotionally. Unlike Sonny, the narrator has a difficult time expressing how and what he feels until he loses his daughter grace. Grace’s death creates the grace in the story, which happens to be a breakthrough and turning point for the narrator; after being imprisoned physically for so long and not speaking to him, the narrator finally breaks and sends his brother a letter. Carrying a burden, the narrator realizes he was suppose to care and look over Sonny. He feels as if he has let his mother down because he did not live up to his responsibilities as a brother. He says in the story, “ i couldn't believe it: i couldn't find any room for it anywhere inside of me. i had kept it outside of me for a long time. i hadn't wanted to know”(Narrator,103). Expressing his sympathy and not being able to cope and accept the reality of what was really going on, instead blocking out the life he lived as an african american, which pulled his brother in as well as himself to try and live up to what the white community views as