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Analysis of sonny's blues by james baldwin
Analysis of sonny's blues by james baldwin
Thematic statement for sonny's blues
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The third and final part states, that we should analyze characters within the story as well as their actions. In Sonny’s Blues, we have the Narrator, Sonny, and the Mother. The Narrator, helps give the reader insight on the setting (Harlem), his occupation and family (teaching), Sonny, and the situations happening within the community (drugs). The Narrator, seems to be a guide to Sonny. He wants to help Sonny get away from the drugs and focus on better things in life like school. He does not fully understand Sonny’s passion for music. (Baldwin, pg. 67) Sonny, seems to be having hard times in life. He has problems with drugs within the city and he has gone to jail. He believes that to better himself, he needs to leave the city. Within
First of all, the identity of Sonny is contrasted sharply with his brother, the narrator. The most obvious difference between the two is their names. Sonny's name is prominent and part of the story's theme. Sonny's brother, on the other hand, is never given a name. Despite being the voice and the perspective of the story, the narrator does not have a distinct identity. He is known solely by his relationship with others, his status as a brother, a son, a husband and a father.
Sonny has troubles in his life, but music keeps him sane as he tries to communicate his troubles through the piano, and his art invokes emotion to those who hear it. Sonny has had to deal with many troubles in life, and he turns to drugs for release, but this is just another one of his problems. Sonny is not very old when his
Conflict is opposition between two forces, and it may be external or internal,” (Barker). There are two styles of external conflict that can be examined within the plot of “Sonny’s Blues”. The first of these is character versus society. This is the outer layer of the external conflict observed between Sonny and the society, which his life is out casted from. The meat and potatoes of the external conflict however, is character versus character. Sonny lives a lifestyle that his brother seems to be incapable of understanding. The internal conflict lies within the narrator. It is his struggle to understand his brother that drives the plot. The climax occurs when Sonny and the narrator argue in the apartment. The argument stems from the narrators complete inability to understand Sonny’s drug usage and life as a musician, and Sonny’s feeling of abandonment and inability to make his brother understand him. This conflict appears to come to a resolve at the resolution as the narrator orders Sonny a drink following hearing Sonny perform for the first time. It appears as though this is the moment when the narrator begins to understand, perhaps for the first time, his brother the
Harlem is the setting of this story and has been a center for drugs and alcohol abuse. The initial event in this story shows that Sonny is still caught in this world. Sonny says that he is only selling drugs to make money and claims that he is no longer using. In the story the brother begins to see that Sonny has his own problems, but tries to help the people around him by using music to comfort
Music speaks to every generation of teenagers, adults, and even kids. It becomes a language that once heard, transforms strangers into friends. Throughout “Sonny’s Blues” the music played by Sonny becomes his escape from the drugs, the day, and even his life. Sonny struggles with drugs, a fear of rejection, and the fact that he is a man. Having people there during a time of solitude is nice but one day, growing up is a part of being an adult. Whether life draws people towards becoming a jazz musician or an algebra teacher, everyone is dealing with the same hell, just different
The narrator's disapproval of Sonny's decision to become a musician stems in part from his view of musicians in general. His experiences with musicians have led him to believe that they are unmotivated, drug users, seeking only escape from life. He does not really understand what motivates Sonny to play music until the afternoon before he accompanies Sonny to his performance at a club in Harlem. That afternoon, Sonny explains to him that music is his voice, his way of expressing his suffering and releasing his pent-up feelings.
James Baldwin portrays the narrator and Sonny as the significance of having a strong relationship with family and the ability to succeed the battle of your personal demons fighting with your beliefs. The narrator or ‘big brother’ is a responsible
“Sonny’s Blues” is written after the brother discovers what happened to his uncle, his talk with his brother, and his future reunion. The story is not progressive but rather collective. The brother has all the information and then he composes the story. By doing this, the reader has the ability to understand the plot more completely. The reader can see how the discovery of his uncle relates to his care for his brother. It also shows how the death of Gracie leads the brother to realizing the importance of family. “And I didn’t write Sonny or send him anything for a long time. When I finally did, it was just after my little girl died.” (Baldwin 52) Although the events take place during different times, Baldwin portrays the events as if they were happening at the same time. As a result, the brother can emphasize more on the content of the events and their relationship to one another, rather than their sequence or causality. This would be impossible and dulled if the brother did not have selective omniscient information of the past, present, and
He was a man that had many struggles and obstacles in life. If he was to tell his story, the accounts might be deflected and the memories might be tainted. Even if the story was to change into many points of views, we could have Sonny’s, the brother’s, and the mother’s. We have all the characters in the story with all their accounts of what happened, but we would just have different problems, responsibilities, and effects. Everyone had their moments in the story with their accounts, but it’s most effective with one person’s point of view. The narrator was able to tell his story and the story of Sonny’s to where it was most
is only after Sonny's brother hears Sonny play that it all seems to make sense. In Sonny's music
Music is a thread throughout the story. In the boys’ childhood, Sonny always loved to play piano; to him that was a way of escaping his environment. Music for Sonny was a way of expressing himself and interpreting the world. Sometimes Sonny felt when he was staying at his older brother’s house, his brother’s wife did not understand Sonny’s mode of communication. This refusal forces him into the streets. When Sonny plays music that’s how he blocks out the world that doesn’t understand him and his passion.
Several passages found throughout "Sonny's Blues" indicate that as a whole, the neighborhood of Harlem is in the turmoil of a battle between good and evil. The narrator describes Sonny's close encounters with the evil manifested in drugs and crime, as well as his assertive attempts at distancing himself from the darker side. The streets and communities of Harlem are described as being a harsh environment which claims the lives of many who have struggled against the constant enticement of emotional escape through drugs, and financial escape through crime. Sonny's parents, just like the others in Harlem, have attempted to distance their children from the dark sides of their community, but inevitably, they are all aware that one day each child will face a decisionb for the first time. Each child will eventually join the ranks of all the other members of society fighting a war against evil at the personal level so cleanly brought to life by James Baldwin. Amongst all the chaos, the reader is introduced to Sonny's special secret weapon against the pressures of life: Jazz. Baldwin presents jazz as being a two-edged sword capable of expressing emotions like no other method, but also a presenting grave danger to each individual who bears it. Throughout the the story, the reader follows Sonny's past and present skirmishes with evil, his triumphs, and his defeats. By using metaphorical factors such as drugs and jazz in a war-symbolizing setting, Baldwin has put the focus of good and evil to work at the heart of "Sonny's Blues."
Unlike Sonny, our narrator doesn't even deal with his problems at all. He doesn't cope with them in either a positive or negative way. We can see this very clearly in the way that he discusses the death of his daughter. It really only mentioned how his wife felt about the situation, not how he coped with it. The story even opens up with him talking about how he pushes the news of Sonny so deep inside of him almost so he doesn't feel it at all, or at least he attempts not to. There is a sort of irony in how our narrator and Sonny both deal with their feelings, Sonny is looked down upon for escaping his issues in a destructive way although his brother is being just as destructive just in a more internal
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.
The narrator allows Sonny to move into his apartment. By allowing Sonny to live with him he has allowed to trust him again. For example, the narrator explains, “The idea of searching Sonny’s room made me still. I scarcely dared to admit to myself what I’d be searching for. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found it. Or if I didn’t” (pg. 91). This shows how the narrator had the opportunity to search his brother’s room, but had the ability not to. Tension grew among brothers while living under one roof. This starts the climax of both arguing in the apartment. The narrator doesn’t understand why his brother wants to be a musician. This argument was built of emotion both had and not yet discussed among each other. Such as the narrator expressing his anger towards his brother’s drug use and Sonny’s frustration towards the narrator not understanding his plan to become a jazz musician. For example, the narrator states, “I realized, with this mocking look, that there stood between us, forever, beyond the power of time or forgiveness, the fact that I had held silence – so long! – when he had needed human speech to help him” (pg.94). The argument with his brother made him realize that he abandon his younger brother when he needed him the most. He realized that if he would have spoken out and talk about his drug use that he wouldn’t have to go