...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 to the fact mentioned before; the narrator does not...
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..."Sony's Blues" which is an famous short story by James Baldwin, describes many conflicts in relationships and obstacles African American lives in the 1950s. At this time, there was discrimination in the society of The United States. The story is narrated by the brother of Sonny. In the end of story, the narrator comes to Sonny's show of jazz following his young brother, Sonny's invitation. This event is held at a small nightclub in Greenwich Village. Sonny's brother is there and harmonies himself with jazz music. He carefully observes any changes of Sonny at his first performane at nightclub. The author sets up the nightclub in the end of story effectively. This setting is spotlight and important for turning point of the brotherhood between narrator and his younger brother, Sony. After many arguments on different styles of living, Sonny opens his heart by inviting his...
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...Sonny’s Blues | Introduction Printable Version Download PDF Cite this Page Ask a Question Tweet This Frequently anthologized, James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" tells the story of two brothers who come to understand each other. More specifically, it highlights, through its two main characters, the two sides of the African-American experience. The narrator has assimilated into white society as much as possible but still feels the pain of institutional racism and the limits placed upon his opportunity. Conversely, Sonny has never tried to assimilate and must find an outlet for the deep pain and suffering that his status as permanent outsider confers upon him. Sonny channels his suffering into music, especially bebop jazz and the blues, forms developed by African-American musicians. "Sonny's Blues" was first published in 1957 and was collected in Baldwin's 1965 book, Going to Meet the Man. The story also has biblical implications. Baldwin became a street preacher early in his life, and religious themes appear throughout his writings. In "Sonny's Blues," Baldwin uses the image from the book of Isaiah of the "cup of trembling" to symbolize the suffering and trouble that Sonny has experienced in his life. At the end of the story, while Sonny is playing the piano, Sonny's brother watches a barmaid bring a glass of Scotch and milk to the piano, which "glowed and shook above my brother's head like the very cup of trembling." As Sonny plays, the cup reminds his brother of all of 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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...The plot in “Sonny’s Blues” emphasizes the importance of the bond between two brothers through the power of music and god. “Sonny’s Blues” displays the daily struggle of societal issues, status, and achievements the two brothers faced in reality. Sonny's brother struggles to understand Sonny and his compassion for music. Music builds this communication that the narrator lacks with his brother but they overcome these struggles through music. The narrator is struggling to bond with his distant brother as a biblical vibe is looking over the narrator and helping him through his life. Music plays a significant role in the brother’s lives as it changes their view of each other. Sonny’s dream of becoming a jazz musician is shunned upon his brother but he doesn’t quit his dream. His brother worried that pursuing a music career won’t help him financially and can’t become...
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... 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, who is unnamed reveals...
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...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 to do the same...
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...Literary Analysis of “Sweat” and “Sonny’s Blues” Amelia Williams ENG125: Introduction to Literature Instructor: Deborah Zeringue December 22, 2014 As living and breathing human beings people are bound to experience some type of conflict. Conflict can be present within a person, between two people, between a person and forces of nature, and even between a person and their society. Conflict is defined as the struggle that shapes the plot in a story (Clugston, 2014, ch.4sect.1 para.4). When reading a piece of literature, especially a short story, one should pay special attention to the central conflict because it is the key element of the story (Clugston, 2014). This essay will analyze “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston in terms of individual versus individual, nature, society, and self, symbolism, figurative language, similarities and differences. In the short stories “Sonny’s Blues” and “Sweat” both of the main characters deal with an internal conflict of some sort. Sonny in Sonny’s Blues has to refrain from turning back to drugs after his release from prison; he is also facing the piano again after not playing for a year. Delia, on the other hand has to live with an abusive, cheating husband that “done beat huh ‘nough tuh kill three women” (Hurston, 1926, para. 24). In both texts the main characters are described as humble people, for example in “Sweat,” the author writes “Delia’s habitual meekness seemed to slip from her shoulders...
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... Sympathizing with Sonny, the drug addict in the story, rather than with his brother, the narrator, "Sonny's Blues" presents a complex picture of drug use as a means of coping with sorrow and fear. The short story "Sonny's Blues,” by James Baldwin, (1957) tells the story of two brothers who come to un-derstand each other. More specifically, it shows, through its two main characters, Sonny and his older brother, the two sides of African-American's experience with much of racism. The narrator, Sonny's brother, has tried to assimilate to the white society, but still feel the pain and the limits on his opportuni-ty. On the other hand, Sonny has never tried to assimilate and has to find the way out for his pain through drugs. In "Sonny's Blues,” we can understand what happened, why it happened, and why char-acters acted the way they do. The story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin (1957) explores the theme of suffering experienced by Black Americans as individuals fettered by discrimination, unemployment, housing problems, drug ad-diction, imprisonment and suicide. It features the struggle of two brothers separated and caught in the entangle-ments of time, space and ideals. Harlem, the setting of "Sonny's Blues," is packed with barely-contained anger. The community is forced to live in an oppressive and painful world; as a result, many are left deeply angry. The narrator describes the neighborhood as a "boiling sea" (112) and comments that his students are "filled with...
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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” 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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...Finding Light through the Darkness In James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, the narrator which is Sonny’s brother, James attempts to understand the life of his younger brother Sonny. Through trials and tribulations both brothers see the light through the darkness that surrounds both of their lives. From childhood to adulthood, both brothers go through experiences, which would have an everlasting effect on their lives. The story is set in Harlem, New York City approximately after the Korean War. The brothers' military service plays an important role in the socio-historical context of the story. The narrator refers to being "home on leave from the army" during the war; he remarks that his father "died suddenly, during a drunken weekend in the middle of the war, when Sonny was fifteen", and he informs the reader that both he and Sonny served in the military. It is important to notice and understand these references to the military service of the brothers. The characters in "Sonny's Blues" reflect this tendency: As a teenager, Sonny yearns to enlist in the army or navy because it would take him away from the "killing streets" of Harlem and give him the opportunity to get a college education on the GI Bill. The narrator, too, has struggled in spite of his military service to his country to attain success and safety at home. He fought the war, returned home to become an algebra teacher, and a productive member of the middle class, and yet because of segregation...
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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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...Baldwin is the author of Sonny’s Blues published in early 1950 in New City. The story is narrated by unknown man who pertain his attempted to come to the damage with his long disaffected Brother Sonny, Jazz musician. In this work Baldwin absorbed many of his own experiences to search the issuances of racial conflict, individuality and the complexity of human needs. Similar to Sonny, Harrison Bergeron, written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr is a fourteen year boy who rebels against his tyrannical government. Vonnegut used a satirical humoristic commentary of society and its leaders as James used the lightness and darkness symbols to describe his suffering characters. The question is how the author literacy styles differ or similar to one another in term of themes? The Comparison-Contrast Essay Sonny’s Blues written by James is a story that addresses with very expression of the society and is done so through symbolism and imagery. Baldwin’s story is carefully written using lightness and darkness as typifies through out the entire story, he focuses of “Sonny’s Blues” on the character of sonny who eventually and endlessly fighting to find what makes him happy. Finally Sonny finds two breaks loose, one of them disastrous drug abuse and musician Baldwin’s story is centered on two brothers at different stage of their lives and different style of life. The main term of the story is focused on the making understanding between two brothers, Sonny and his brother. The narrator even through the story...
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...James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny Blues” is about a young jazz musician named Sonny, who is from Harlem, New York. Sonny gets addicted to heroin and gets arrested for utilizing and selling drugs. After he is released from prison he returns back to his childhood neighborhood. He moves in with his brother, who is the narrator of this story and his brother’s family. During Sonny’s stay, him and his brother reconnect after dealing with one another anger towards each other. The focal point of this story is drugs, but also it’s about family, music, and trying to overcome life’s struggles. The byword “Sonny’s Blues” doesn’t arise until the end of the story when Sonny is playing his piano at a nightclub. The term “blues” could be referring to...
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