...Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues,” music represents different things to different characters. For the narrator, jazz music is associated with “’good-time people,’” (Baldwin, 1981) those who like to party often, drink, and take drugs. It’s not seen as a life worth living because there seems no financial gain from it. “Can you make a living at it?” (Baldwin, 1982) he asks Sonny, before telling him that “it’s time [he] started thinking about [his] future.” (Baldwin, 1982) This type of life “seemed beneath [Sonny] somehow.” (Baldwin, 1981) That view is because he couldn’t understand what music meant for Sonny. It was more than “the only thing [he] want[ed] to do,” (Baldwin, 1982), for Sonny music is an escape or a release. When Sonny plays the piano he “fill[s] the air with life, his life.” (Baldwin, 1992) Even when Sonny was younger playing at Isabel’s they all “sensed…that Sonny was at [the] piano playing for his life.” (Baldwin, 1984) Sonny needed music to release his “torment.” (Baldwin 1991) The title, “Sonny’s Blues” stands for this need. The blues music Sonny produces is a “personal, private, vanishing evocation” (Baldwin, 1990) of his life’s regret. Great music requires suffering. Yet it’s most beautiful when the music isn’t a reflection of our “lamenting” (Baldwin, 1992) but an embrace of our sorrow, when we “make it ours.” (Baldwin, 1992) 4) What do you think the theme of the story is? Given the symbolic nature of the music and the title “Sonny’s Blues,” I feel the theme...
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...The setting of a story includes the time, place, cultural atmosphere, and more. The setting influences the themes of escape, suffering, and redemption in “Sonny’s Blues.” The story took place in Harlem, New York in the 1950’s. The area was considered to have low-income housing and the narrator of the story which was Sonny’s brother lived in a housing project. Most of the story takes place when he gets out of rehab but there are a lot of flashbacks that fill in the blanks about the past and gives a better understanding of the history between Sonny and the narrator. With the theme of escape, it is everyone’s dream to get out of Harlem and do better for themselves. Sonny wanted to be a musician and to make a living at it. With that...
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...Blues music originated in the south in the 19th century and generally evolved from workers out in the fields and from African songs. “Sonny’s Blues” was written in 1957 but still, to this day, sends out a message for everyone today. James Baldwin, in “Sonny’s Blues”, writes about two brothers who have trouble trying to understand each other. Suzy Goldman, in “Sonny’s Blues: A Message in Music”, writes about how music affects life of others and that is only takes someone who understands music to see what its affect actually is on people. Music comes from the heart and soul no matter what the musician may tend to do to themselves like drugs or alcohol abuse. “Sonny’s blues” begins with Sonny’s brother finding out the he is in jail and had been...
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...“Sonny’s Blues”, by James Baldwin, is a story about two brothers who have become distant from one another by their different aspirations in life. The unnamed narrator lives in their hometown, Harlem and works as an algebra teacher. Sonny, on the other hand, lives out his dream of playing jazz music away from Harlem. Baldwin uses suffering as a central idea, and control as an external conflict. Baldwin portrays the central theme of suffering through both characters, but more often with Sonny. Sonny says, “I’m glad Mama and Daddy are dead and can’t see what’s happened to their son and I swear if I’d known what I was doing I would have never hurt you so…” (PG #). Sonny demonstrates how he suffers from drug addiction, because he was unaware of...
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...“Sonny’s Blues” James Baldwin’s “sonny’s Blues” is a short story about the life of two brothers growing up in Harlem, New York during the 1950’s, in a society littered with drugs, violence, poverty and racism. It explores how each brother reacts to the “darkness” of their environment and their own internal turmoil which separated them and the music that eventually lead them back together. In “Sonny’s Blues” a short story written by James Baldwin discusses various situations described as darkness. I believe the word darkness symbolize the rough living conditions the two brothers endured growing up in Harlem, New York. Earlier in the story the narrator notes his students being filled with indignation because of the limited opportunities in the community. “All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness…” Other dark situations discussed in Sonny’s Blues is Sonny’s drug addiction to heroin that is highly addictive, life in prison and the everyday struggle growing up in Harlem where African American people was victimized; As seen in a conversation between the narrator and his mother,” Your father says he heard his brother scream when the car rolled over him, and he heard the wood of that guitar when it give, and he heard them strings go flying, and he heard them white men shouting, and the car kept on going and it anit stopped til this day.” I believe...
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...Introduction This annotated bibliography is designed to give readers an understanding of how Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a modernization of the biblical account of Cain and Able. While the text of Sonny’s Blues does not align with the story of Cain and Able verbatim, the underlying theme of being a “brother’s keeper” is central to both stories. I set out to identify the various elements involved in being a “brother’s keeper”. After reading the biblical account of Cain and Able, two sub-themes came to the forefront self-identity and responsibility. I selected the sources listed below to highlight the ways Baldwin uses the themes of identity and responsibility, and other literary mechanisms to connect Sonny’s Blues to the biblical account of Cain and Able. Byerman, Keith A. "Words And Music: Narrative Ambiguity In 'Sonny's Blues'." Studies In Short Fiction 19.4 (1982): 367. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. Byerman discusses how music and words create ambiguity in Sonny’s Blues. He points out the rhythm of the wording in the text and how the narrator uses the words to communicate his ideas and as a defense mechanism when his reality is too harsh to handle. The narrator’s candid wording at times draws the reader in with understanding and intrigue. Yet, his vacillating uses of metaphors seem to shut the reader out when the details become too sensitive. Just as the narrator uses words to present his case to the reader, Sonny uses music...
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...Arsalan Vohra Sonny's Blues Research Paper The narrator in the story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, has a very deep connection with his family. His brother Sonny isn't very good at making decisions and is on the path to destroy his life. Will Sonny ever learn from his mistakes and see the road to success? Sonny is a very stubborn kid who doesn't listen to anyone and does only what he wants. The narrator has to put him back on the right track and has to play a mature roll on him just like his father did with his own brother also. The narrator and his family aren't very happy with Sonny but they don't have any idea about Sonny's hidden talent. Sonny's proves them wrong and can now be called a responsible person. Judging people can be a person's biggest mistake. People need time to realize the reality of life and just need to be patient for their time to come. Even Sonny's family had given up on him but Sonny always knew their was light in his future somewhere and was eager to shine. He has done a lot of bad things and has made mistakes in the past but he doesn't let that affect his future. “Sonny Blue’s” takes place in Harlem around the early 1950’s. Sonny ends up having to turn towards drugs because he feels trapped in his surroundings. The story explains the theme of suffering experienced by african individuals. They are constantly getting discriminated against, becoming unemployment, and therefore turning into drug addicts . The narrator...
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...Summary of Thorell Tsomondo’s “No Tale to Tell: ‘Sonny’s Blues’ and Waiting for the Rain” In Thorell Tsomondo’s “No Other Tale to Tell: ‘Sonny’s Blues’ and Waiting for the Rain,” Sonny the artist is a historian (Tsomondo 196). Sonny’s history is the experience of society and that of an individual (196). For Baldwin, the artist’s credibility and appeal hinge on his historical knowledge and his success as historian is dependent on his artistic skill (196). Sonny is a kind of poet-prophet committed all together to solitary and communal experience, bound at once to tradition and to change (196). Sonny’s Blues are set in the black ghetto of New York City, and tell a story of a young pianist dogged by heroin addiction and alienated from his family (196). Yet he captures and relates a people’s historical existence, leading his audience to a heightened, shared awareness of their cultural identity (196). In Sonny’s Blues, memory, the return to the past, is motivated by a sense of amassment, but by a sense of necessity (196). Baldwin like other African American writers retains a sense of the past that is acutely unstable (196). Instead of feeling animosity to the past, the African American is in search for the continuity that it can provide (197). Writers like Baldwin are concerned with the reconstruction of an individual tradition and emancipating force that is the art which they transform need into fullness (197). Sonny’s Blues is more than a presentation of a voyage or view...
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...Sonny’s Blues 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 decision 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 (Albert). 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 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...
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...April 13, 2014 Music and Salvation Written by James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” revolves around Sonny, a drug addict Jazz enthusiast and his unnamed brother, the narrator, who teaches algebra in Harlem. While the brothers are at two very different stages in their life, they both are struggling to find salvation and “reinvent their brotherhood in spite of the otherwise bleak environment of drug use, violence, and disenfranchisement in which they live” (Duncan). Throughout the story Jazz music plays a major role. While the brothers have different feelings about Jazz music it is ultimately the music with helps the brothers to salvage their relationship and find the salvation that they have been looking for. At the beginning of “Sonny’s Blues” both brothers are trapped – both physically and emotionally. Sonny is literally imprisoned while in jail. He is also confined by his drug addiction, which is the reason he is in jail in the first place. The narrator, on the other hand, is not confined in jail or addicted to drugs. He has more physical freedom than does Sonny but yet he is still trapped. He is stuck inside of Harlem and he is trapped inside of the housing projects he lives. He became an algebra teacher to try to make a better life for his family and yet still he is trapped inside of these run down houses, the “rocks in the middle of a boiling sea” (Sonny’s Blues, pg. 7), and this bothers him. Emotionally, Sonny’s brother is trapped inside of himself. He has a “selfish desire...
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...Sonny’s Blues Baldwin uses several references to darkness and light in his story, “Sonny’s Blues”. One of the first is when the narrator, Sonny’s brother, finds out about his arrest by reading the newspaper. On his subway ride home, he reads of Sonny’s arrest by the “swinging lights of the subway car” while “the darkness raged outside”. Baldwin uses this imagery of darkness to illustrate the narrator’s fear and depression concerning Sonny’s situation. The imagery of “swinging lights” may be a reference to the coming of understanding the narrator will have at the end of the story. Another imagery of darkness Baldwin uses is when the narrator is describing the students in his class. “All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives… and the darkness of the movies….”.This was in reference to the environment that they found themselves growing up. A tough city full of crime and poverty. One other imagery of darkness is in the paragraph that begins, “This was the last time I ever saw my mother alive.” In this paragraph the narrator is describing a memory from childhood of when his mama was younger and there was a gathering of “church folks and relatives talking after the big Sunday dinner.” The suffering of African Americans is referred to by, “The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It’s what they’ve come from. It’s what they endure.” One can draw from this the gloom, despair, and hardships that have marked their lives. It is further...
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...James Baldwin begins the novel of Sonny’s blues with the narrator’s mother, charging him with watching over Sonny, asking him to serve as his brother’s keeper. The dynamic between the two brothers is a parallelism to the relationship between the brothers Cain and Abel in the Bible. In that narrative, Cain, after murdering Abel, asks whether he is supposed to be his brother’s keeper. The narrator, following his mother’s death, is presented with a similar dilemma. Since their mother’s death, Sonny’s life has been marred by prison and drug abuse. The tension between the two brothers is so great that after one particular fight, Sonny tells his brother to consider him dead from that point on, a statement that, again, deliberately echoes the biblical narrative of Cain and Abel. Baldwin’s sentences also contain a biblical tone and rhythm. Like Cain, the narrator turns his back on his brother and fails, at first, to respond to Sonny when he is prison. He has failed to live up to his mother’s commandment that he watches over his brother—but the failure is only temporary. By the end of the story, the narrator has taken Sonny back into his home. He finally takes on the role of his brother’s keeper, constantly watching and worrying over Sonny as he emerges from the darkness of prison and drug abuse. The idea of brotherly love extends beyond the relationship between the narrator and Sonny into the community as a whole. Harlem is plagued by drugs, poverty, and frustration, but members of...
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...Journal 5 Othello Othello is a cool but nasty deceiving story. The way Iago plays everyone and how they listen and are so gullible is unbelievable. But this kind of stuff happens today, to everyone in different ways. Desdemona is just like any woman and is in live with her husband. Iago goes about the way he plots everything so sneakily. He doesn’t think twice about whether or not he is doing wrong. He just says and people do. That’s what I like about him. I envy that he can think of things so complexly and it all work out the way he wants. In the end though it all unravels, it all comes apart. Othello kills those he loves which in any case should never be wished upon anyone. You have to be cold hearted to make someone kill their wife. A lot of people were hurt in this play and for a lot of stupid reasons that could have been avoided with communication. Back then there was no such thing as women being equal with men, so there were no talking things out. And when Othello had in his mind that things were wrong and Desdemona was cheating on him. Or something like that! Shakespeare was a genius when it came to plays and stories. His tragedies are always twisted and never what they seem. Someone is always wrong and being manipulated. It seems that back then they did a lot more thinking to themselves! If they didn’t think so much about what “could be” and “what if” then the characters wouldn’t assume things and no one would need to...
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...Cohen English 1197 Sec 001 April 10th, 2012 “The Sounds of Sonny’s Blues” James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues is a short story focused around the narration of Sonny’s brother. The narrator in the case of Sonny’s Blues is the most important character in a cast of characters not only because he is the narrator, but due to the dynamic change of his character we see at the end of the story. Baldwin effectively uses the first-person narration of Sonny’s brother in order to convey the theme of communication. Throughout the entire story of Sonny’s Blues, the narrator and his brother interact through exchanging words countless times. The question posed is whether or not the narrator can truly hear what his brother is saying to him. Through an examination of the narration style and the ways in which the characters are composed, we can see how Baldwin develops the theme of communication throughout Sonny’s Blues. Directly at the start of Sonny’s Blues we can identify the first-person narration. “I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work. I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again.” (p. 75) Over and over again Baldwin uses “I” and “my” allowing the reader to easily detect the first-person narration style. The limited first-person narration will be crucial in the development of the theme of communication due to reader’s abilities to know narrator’s thoughts and feelings, but not Sonny’s. We know that the narrator is limited and not omniscient due...
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...The narrator gives an account of how he learnt about the arrest of his brother from a newspaper on his way to a school where he served as a mathematics teacher. His brother Sonny had been arrested for trading and using prohibited heroin drugs. The arrest troubles him to a great extent that he is unable to concentrate to his duty. During the algebra lesson preparation, he sees through his class Sonny as a committed young man. The narrator figures out that some students could someday end up like his brother, given the obstacles and hardships they face growing up in Harlem. By the time school day comes to a close, on the way home, he notices that one of Sonny’s old folk, who is always high and dirty, is waiting for him by the school. He was eager...
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