Analysis Of Sonny's Blues And Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

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Imagine you’re confined to a wooden box where you’re only allowed tiny amounts of movements but your arms and feet are free of clutches and there is a few holes on the top surface of the box so you are allowed to breathe. How free are you? In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and the novel “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison we are spectators of ‘Black Oppression’. Where the Blacks regardless of the abolition of slavery, are still mentally enslaved and physically limited to any kosher manifestation of success without the sway of the Whites. Consequently, of reading these written works I only now realized the gap of history that I’ve forgotten to see. When I was sixteen years old I remember telling myself, “Oh hell to those who …show more content…

His related action towards his grandfather’s words, “Live with your head in the lion 's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open" as a action of distrust since he believes that the best way to winning the fight was to provide them with genuine commitment. The narrator chooses to surrender himself to the Whites and devoting himself to gaining the respect and trust of the Whites. It is to my believe that the narrator is projecting himself as civilized and hospitable in order to change the views of himself to one that is less barbaric in the eyes of the Whites. He is lead to believe that his compliance has leaded him to a rewarding future and is thought to believe that he has acquired some sort of …show more content…

To leave no leave unturned, Sonny’s Blue has leaned me into a risker province where I am to choose freedom of my body or my mind. Like the narrator in “Battle Royal” the narrator in “Sonny’s Blue” are more so related. Both narrator turns a blind eye from the sufferance of their people; which not only leads them to crime but an unwritten endorsement to abide by the Black Stereotype. Sunny however normatively is influenced by the crime in his home town, Harlem. Upon his capture and release from prison he is driven on redirecting himself on a right path. He finds his escape from the crime and sufferance through Music, where he drowns his sorry and feels the sufferance of his people and

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