Analysis Of Rocket Boys By Homer Hadley Hickam Jr.

Sonny wasn't safe, no matter how much his brother had tried to protect him in his own way, by sending him to live with Isabel and her parents. He still got involved with drugs. The big brother syndrome kicks in again one day when Sonny had gone out. "I was trying to remember everything I'd heard about dope addiction and I couldn't help watching Sonny for signs. I wasn't doing it out of malice. I was trying to find out something about my brother. I was dying to hear him tell me he was safe" (54). He was trying to protect his brother, but there was nothing he

Eventually the narrator and invites him to live his family once he is released from prison and Sonny reluctantly agrees to live there until he finishes college. This is a big turning point in the narrator’s character because he had finally began to wonder “ about the life that Sonny had lived” (Baldwin 243) and started making his efforts to take care of his little brother like he once promised his mother.

The narrator experienced a lot of problems throughout his life but managed to emerge victoriously from most of them. Even with this, he needs to support Sonny because this was his mother's dying wish. "The death of the narrator's daughter, Sonny's failure to fit in with his own family, a stint in the navy all serve to alienate the brothers, even after their mother made the narrator promise to keep an eye on young Sonny" (Smith 22). The fact that they were born in a harsh environment, society's views in regard to their racial background, and the fact that they experienced a lot of hardships during their lives all had a severe effect on the personalities of each of the brothers.

Stuck in his own mindset of what life should be like, he failed to see where his brother was coming from when questioning his future goals and plans. Sonny appeared to be a very sensitive person when the narrator questioned his views and dreams, he took offense and distant himself every time. After their mother died, Sonny was proposed to stay with Isabel (narrator's wife) family, he shot the idea down initially because he really wanted to break out the "trap" that was Harlem and relocate, "Look brother. I don't want to stay in Harlem no more, I really don't." There was something in his eyes I'd never seen before, some thoughtfulness, some worry all his own." (page 58 p11). This showed he knew the outcome if he stayed and didn't leave soon, even opting to join the armed forces if need be. He and his brother came to an agreement with the staying and finishing of school at Isabel's house with the piano. He tried to create happiness through music, which appears to be his escape to the harsh reality they lived in, every day on the piano trying to find an outlet. Eventually, he would stop going to school, and after an intense argument vanished altogether for years making a name for

Mr. Baldwin made the older brother the narrator so the reader would not feel like Sonny was a dangerous man. The older brother seemed to apologize for Sonny while at the same time try to convince himself and the reader that Sonny really was not a bad guy. Sonny is really a hero and yet an anti-hero. He is someone that seems dangerous, lazy and extreme until you get to know him. The problem is that Sonny does not let people know him.

Homer applied, got the job and was a coal miner. For weeks all he did was get up at the crack of dawn and not come home until late at night. For once, Homer’s father was proud of Homer, and showing it. Homer’s mother, Elsie Hickam, had shown she believed in Homer, but until Homer got a chance to go to the science fair, she did not show it. She stayed out of Homer and his dad’s fights, which is almost as bad as following John blindly. But, when Homer needed her most, she was there, fought John and had John help Homer. “Homer once said you loved the mine more than your own family. I stood up for you because I didnt want to believe it. Homer has gotten a lot of help from the people in this town. They’ve helped him build his rockets. They’ve watched him fly ’em. But not you. You never showed up, not even once.” Now, Homer’s brother, Jim Hickam, on the other hand had still followed their dad but he was closer to helping and believing in Homer than their dad was. Homer’s brother had told everyone about the rocket launch and told them all to come and see it without Homer’s consent or knowledge of everyone showing up. Originally, Jim wanted to embarrass Homer in front of everyone, but it backfired and worked well for Homer in the end. Although Family doesn’t show it much, they still do love you, they may disagree with your beliefs, and your dreams, but they should still help and support you, even if they do not have the money to help.

In the "Radioactive Boy Scout" the author tells us about David Hahn, a teenage boy who tries to build a homemade breeder nuclear reactor in 1994, at the age of 17. He was a scout in the Boy Scouts of America, and secretly conducted experiments in a backyard shed at his mother 's house in Clinton Township, Michigan. Even though the radioactivity given off by his reactor never reached a dangerous state, when he was stopped by the police for another reason they found materials in his vehicle that were dangerous. Ten months later, his mother 's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Richard says he has never seen Sonny so upset, but at that time he figures Sonny is just going through some adolescent stage and does not take him seriously (424). These memories establish a definite pattern of the brothers interactions. Richard's recollections indicate that he has made a life-long habit of disregarding Sonny's beliefs and opinions.

The story begins by telling the readers how Sonny’s brother learned of him being in jail from a newspaper article (29), one might automatically infer that their relationship isn’t so good. It makes you wonder how much influence Sonny’s brother had when it came to how his life ended up. At one point in the beginning of the story his brother even asks himself if he had anything to do with it (33), as if to help the readers with the already occurring thought that maybe he could have helped his brother, maybe he could have been there and done more. Later on, he talks about the promise he made to his mother to take care of his brother, to lift him up and not let him fall (42). He had a responsibility to his little brother and he ultimately let him down, he let him fall and wasn’t around to help him back up when he needed it the most.

As well as in the short story Sonny’s Blues, the main character, Sonny, is being criticized by his brother. Since the very beginning, their mother told the oldest one, ‘’ you got to hold on to your brother ’’ and that’s what he wanted to do, but Sonny took a different path than he did. Sonny was the kind of guy that was heroin-addicted and a jazz musician, but his older brother didn’t see all these sides of him. We discover all these sides by the use of flashback of the author throughout the major parts of the story. The author didn’t want us to see Sonny like his older brother was seeing him, he wanted us to see him as a poor, un-accepted guy that needed to be listened by his peers. The brother didn’t accept the journey that Sonny had taken, but if he would of saw the actual Sonny, and stop hiding in the darkness, he would of accepted him faster and understand that Sonny only wanted to show that he could do good things not only drugs. In the middle of the story, there is a flashback were we learn that actually Sonny is more experienced about life than his older brother, because Sonny was in drugs and was really affected by Harlem( the city they stayed in when they were younger). The brother had a pretty easy life; he became a teacher and had a little family. This demonstrates that we need support from our peers, to be able to continue without taking bad choices.

any more. Sonny had been in the Navy and had been living on his own for some

Her older son has difficulty with her legacy because he chooses not to see. Where his mother was vigilant and quick to identify the weak areas in her family, her son is blind to them. The beginning of "Sonny's Blues" marks an awakening for him. He is faced with a printed truth about Sonny's drug addiction, and suddenly his world is penetrated from all directions. His own grief for the loss of his daughter focuses this new perception. "My trouble made his real" (429); he needs to reach out to Sonny in order to begin to resolve his own pain. Yet as he narrates the story, it becomes apparent that he has perceived very little along the way. Thoughts like "I had never really noticed it before," and "strange, suddenly, to watch, though I had been seeing... all my life" indicate the surprise that the narrator feels as he encounters his life on a new level (430-431). Eventually he comes to understand more clearly when Sonny says, "It's to stand it, to be able to make it at all. On any level" (432). However, he must first find a way to listen.

Furthermore, Sonny's individualism is a direct result of his unhappiness with conventional life. As a young man, Sonny is unable to get along with his father. He hates his home and school. His creative interest leads him to become isolated from his brother, who feels threatened by "his jazz-oriented life style and his continued attraction to Greenwich Village" (Albert 179). By the beginning of the story, Sonny has rejected his family and his home, constructing a new life as a musician and drug peddler in a new location foreign to the narrator.

His mother shared a story with him about his father and his uncle. She wanted him to promise to take care of his brother. She may have had an idea that Sonny was in trouble. After their mother died Sonny told his brother that he didn’t want to stay in Harlem anymore. His brother wanted him to finish school and stay another year. He saw the worry and concern in Sonny’s eyes, but dismissed it. This was Sonny’s way of telling his brother that he needed help before it was too late. Sonny pulled away from him and stated, “I hear you. But you never hear anything I say.”

Throughout the book, Sonny is faced with many economic challenges. When he finds out he is going to be a father he realizes the financial responsibility that comes with it. At this time he is employed by Kleinholtz, but does not feel secure in his job. He attempts to make a pact with the rest of the workers to ensure they would all be more secure from being fired by their boss. This pact would backfire on Sonny and he would be let go. He soon learns that it is complicated to find a job at this time, he even attempts to return to his previous job and it turned away. Lammchen had written to Sonny’s mother, Mia Pinneburg, and she wrote back saying that Sonny had a job if he would move to Berlin. Thanks to his