Allegories And Profundities In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

In James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues” there is a constant contrast between light and dark. Baldwin uses this theme to highlight the struggles that the Narrator and his younger brother, Sonny, both face. Light represents all of the positive aspects of life. Meanwhile, the darkness represents the constant struggle that threatens the characters in the story. Light and dark has a presence in both characters. The narrator lives his life in the “light”. He is a teacher, middleclass man, a man who has a wife and family. For the narrator, the darkness is his constant reflections on his brother, and his sense of guilt or blame for being the reason why Sonny turned to a life of drugs. The darkness represents Sonny in a way. He is a

James Baldwin’s, “Sonny’s Blues,” illustrates the story between two different brothers as they struggle to discover the character of one another. “Sonny’s Blues” is narrated through the older brother’s point of view, as he portrays their difficulties in growing up, separation, and reunion. Baldwin purposely picks to tell the story in the first person point of view because of the omniscient and realistic effects it contribute to the story overall. The mother, father, and Sonny all express their accounts to the older brother, making him the perfect character to tell the story. In addition, the first person point of view allows the reader to experience the vicarious feelings that the

Sonny’s actions were highly influenced by his environment, whether it be the struggles of the streets, his relationship with his father or the dark side of being a blues musician in the 50s. The Narrator explains the lifeless environment he grew up in and the constant struggle of finding light in such a dark enviroment “God knows the people who live in it do their best to make it a parody. The beat-looking grass lying around isn't enough to make their lives green, the hedges will never hold out the streets, and they know it. The big windows fool no one, they aren't big enough to make space out of no space. They don't bother with the windows, they watch the TV screen instead. The playground is most popular with the children who don't play at jacks, or skip rope, or roller skate, or swing, and they can be found in it after dark” (255). One of the significant elements that the author writes about is darkness, he makes it clear about how harlem is a cloak of darkness, and unfortunately people do not know any other shade of life. Both brothers come from the same environment but they cope with their struggles in a different manners: “Thus, in the story of Sonny and his brother an intuition of the meaning of the Blues repairs the relationship between the two men who have chosen different ways to cope with the menacing ghetto environment, and their reconciliation through the medium of this AfroAmerican musical form extends the meaning of the individual's Blues until it becomes a metaphor of Black community” (Reilly 230). African Americans have pioneered many different genres of music that the american society can now claim as their own. What is often not appreciated or shown is the spiritual connection that they have with the music that they create. This sense of finding identity in the music is

James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues contains multiple literary devices, great narrative techniques, and a meaningful setting. Baldwin uses literary devices multiple times in Sonny’s Blues for foreshadowing and also to show relationships between characters. He uses Sonny’s brother as a narrator to help build the story and give you a better insight into the character’s relationships. Baldwin also uses the setting of the story to help with backstory and to show how they were affected during the time.

In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the unspoken brotherly bond between the narrator and his younger brother Sonny is illustrated through the narrator’s point of view. The two brothers have not spoken in years until the narrator receives a letter from Sonny after his daughter dies. He takes this moment as an important sign from Sonny and feels the need to respond. While both Sonny and the narrator live in separate worlds, all Sonny needs is a brother to care for him while the narrator finds himself in the past eventually learning his role as an older brother.

In "Sonny's Blues", a short story written by James Baldwin, two African American brothers try to make sense of the rural deterioration that encircles and seals them both. The symbolic motif of light and darkness illustrates the painful nature of reality the two characters face as well as the power gained through it. The contrasting images of light and darkness, which serves as truth and reality, are used to depict the struggle between Sonny and the narrator in this short story. Baldwin begins his story where Sonny, the narrator’s young brother, has already fallen into drug use, and is now trying to return to a clean life with the help and care of his older brother. The narrator, however, must first attempt to understand and come to terms

SONNY’S BLUES Mykel Gordon ENC 1102 7/11/2016   People face trying times throughout their life. They are presented with obstacles to overcome, and when faced with these obstructions, they look for something to assist them in overcoming. Unfortunately, overcoming them is not the goal for some. They would rather find something to relieve the problem, instead of something to remove the problem. In the city of Harlem, there are not too many positive outlets to relieve one of their stress.

James Baldwin’s novel Sonny’s Blues puts focus on the relationship between the narrator and Sonny whom are siblings. The narrator feels obligated to watch over Sonny as a result of his mother’s dying wish. The story takes place in Harlem as the center of African American culture at that time, a neighborhood deeply affected by poverty and crime, where there was once a culturally enthusiastic community of artists and musicians. The use of symbols such as light and darkness and Sonny’s experiences with music all contribute to the theme of hope, warmth and despair expressed in the relationship between the siblings and the setting of Harlem.

A captivating tale of a relationship between two troubling brothers in Harlem, "Sonny's Blues" is told from the perception of Sonny's brother, whose name is never mentioned. Baldwin's choice of Sonny's brother as a narrator is what makes "Sonny's Blues" significant in terms of illustrating the relationship and emotional complications of Sonny and his brother. The significance of "Sonny's Blues" lies in the way Sonny's brother describes their relationship based on what he observes, hears, and feels, and how he struggles trying to understand Sonny through the course of the story. This is a story of how two African Americans brothers take their own path through life as they struggle to find meaning in their

James Baldwin’s "Sonny's Blues", is a story of two brothers in Harlem, New York. His name, which is never introduced, the story is told from the viewpoint of Sonny's brother. Events in the text brings up many memories of Sonny and his brother which leads to endless amounts of emotions. Throughout "Sonny's Blues", Sonny is affected by the idea of suffering, death of his parents, and his addiction to heroin, in which Baldwin uses to create a cathartic experience in Sonny's life.

“Sonny’s Blues” was written by James Baldwin and it is a story between two brothers with a couple years apart from each other that only had in common their blood. Sonny and his brother, the narrator, have two completely different lives and thoughts about the world around them. They were both affected by the environment where they were raised, but the effects of this world were the opposite in the two brothers. This story is the reflection of how two people from the same family and place can be affected in two totally different ways by the world and have distinct paths. Baldwin’s story is also about how the life choices of one can bring consequences to the other, in this case specifically, how the narrator choices affected his brother’s life

‘ Sonny’s Blues’ is a short singular narrative story written by James Baldwin. In this read we learn about the narrator and his relationship with his brother and their environment around them. Sonny’s brother, the narrator, is a Harlem math teacher who tells us about his experience growing up in poverty and having to deal with his brother’s drug addiction. Ultimately the story becomes about the journey of a black drug addict in the 1950's and his inevitable conflicts. Darkness is a recurring concept throughout the story. One of the more prominent themes in this piece is the balance between good and bad in life or light vs darkness.

Compassion and understanding are gifts that not everyone possesses. However, everyone is capable of developing these gifts. In Sonny’s Blues, the narrator, who is Sonny’s older brother, sees first-hand the consequences of not keeping his promises and not cultivating compassion. Despite being assigned the role of his brother’s keeper by his mother, the narrator lets Sonny slip away into a world of drugs and jazz due to his lack of attention to his brother and his inability to see into Sonny’s world. This fall could have been prevented if the narrator had been willing to listen to Sonny and attempt to see things from his perspective. As the older brother, it was the narrator responsibility to look after his younger brother after the death of their mother.

Several dialectics are at play in James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” including a dialectic between the narrator and his beloved brother Sonny involving their opposing responses to the sense of oppression and limitation that arises from living in Harlem. This dialectic and its resolution closely parallel Baldwin’s masterful use of Blues, Jazz, and Gospel music.

The sibling relationship between the narrator and his brother in “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin greatly contributes to the meaning of the work. Throughout the story, the narrator separates himself from his family and his community. He passes as if he is not connected to his ancestors who struggled through slavery to freedom. The narrator takes this freedom for granted, choosing to gain privilege, status, and acceptance. Unlike his brother Sonny, who accepts and embraces his community, the narrator gives up his identity for the safety and well-being of his new family. By doing so, however, the narrator loses Sonny and the rest of his community. Ultimately, Sonny is the only one able to reunite his brother with the identity and community he