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Sonny's Blues Literary Analysis Essay

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The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin follows the story of a teacher in Harlem and explores the stories of brotherhood behind Sonny and the narrator, their father and his brother, death of a child, and the large themes of “grace” and “struggle”. Although introduced to many characters in the 27 pages, without a doubt the antagonist is the theme of loss.

Throughout the short story, the narrator feels pain from loss of people close to him or family. The first example of this is how the narrator's father's brother is run over by a car full of drunk white men. The mother's states as she recites the story of the death “Your Daddy never did really get right again. Till the day he died he weren't sure but that every white man he saw was the

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