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Sonny's Blues Thesis

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Sonny’s Blues,” by James Baldwin, is about two brothers who grow up in Harlem in the 1950’s era. The brothers have an unsettled relationship due to the different paths they live. The narrator, being older seems to play more of a parent to Sonny, than being his brother.

The narrator who is judgemental about the way Sonny lives seems to feel as if he is better than where they came from, but he is disappointed in Sonny. “ I didn’t want to believe that I’d ever see my brother going down, coming to nothing…” (pg 18)

The conflict is man vs himself, the narrator, is hypocritical because he only sees living a traditional way of life to be the only right way to live. Since Sonny didn’t live that way, he isolated himself from Sonny. “I had always

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