Analysis Of Sonny 's Blues By John M. Lee

“Sonny’s Blues” is an emotional story written by an amazing author, James Baldwin, who has come to be one of my favorite writers. This particular piece talks about the troubles of African American freeing themselves from the mental bondages of their surroundings, the ghetto. The title is significant, and helped me to understand the underlining meaning of the story. The title can be divided into two main reasons, the first, “Sonny’s Blues, meaning the music he plays. Second is the reference to his life, his feelings, his style, and most importantly his way of life.

In James Baldwin’s short story, Sonny’s Blues, he describes a story of pain and prejudice. The theme of suffering makes the readers relate to it. The story is told in the realistic point of view of Sonny’s brother. The setting and time of the story also has great significance to the story. From beginning to end, the story is well developed.

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

Donald Murray, in “Complicated and Simple”, talks about how the author is emphasizing “man's need to find his identity” as the main issue society as well as Sonny and his brother are dealing with throughout the story. The area of Harlem with all its negative influences tend to affect its children's upcoming. Either to take the difficult route of finding one's self or to fall in the drug trap of Harlem “ it's simpler to submerge oneself, at the most dismal level, the limbo of drug addiction, rather than to truly find oneself” ( Murray 353).

Fictional writing is generally done just to entertain readers. Some authors create stories with a singular point of view, while others introduce more complex plots and storylines. When it comes to author James Baldwin’s short story Sonny’s Blues, there is much depth given to the storyline and the characters. Sonny’s Blues has been analyzed by many different people throughout time because the story has many elements. From Baldwin’s skillful use of metaphors and similes to his incorporation of religious references, this story is insightfully and complexly written. A simple story about a man and his brother leaves readers with an inside look into family, drug addiction, socioeconomic struggles in the Black community, and the language of Jazz

In "Sonny's Blues" James Baldwin presents an intergenerational portrait of suffering and survival within the sphere of black community and family. The family dynamic in this story strongly impacts how characters respond to their own pain and that of their family members. Examining the central characters, Mama, the older brother, and Sonny, reveals that each assumes or acknowledges another's burden and pain in order to accept his or her own situation within an oppressive society. Through this sharing each character is able to achieve a more profound understanding of his own suffering and attain a sharper, if more precarious, notion of survival.

The distorted perception of the narrator was unfavorable, moreover acted as a key feature in the pressed relationship between the main characters. James Baldwin’s protagonists in Sonny’s Blues were brothers who battled their excruciating external and internal conflicts. This dueling conflicts motivated Sonny to take control of the essence in his pain and release it through the notes of his music. Playing jazz notes with the instruments of Jazz, which was an outlet for Sonny, moreover the mimicking his personality. Sonny’s characteristics can be embodied by Jazz and/or Blues.

Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a short story about two brothers that overcome many obstacles in their lives such as housing problems, death, discrimination, drug addiction, and imprisonment. Baldwin tends to use a lot of symbolism, allegories and imagery within the text as well. This story expresses the overall theme of suffering that Black Americans faced during the 1950s. The link between music, drugs, and environment play a large role when it comes to the characters suffering.

In Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is the story about a musician who is struggling to cope with his depression through his music and drugs. Baldwin writes this story about himself by bypassing any direct notation of him. As he is trying to break the inequalities that the people during that time are facing. Many people like Sonny are having a problem with drugs which ultimately gets him arrested. Now he has to find his place in the world with the many things that he faces in his everyday life. Baldwin illustrates how drugs, music, and the support of family helps Sonny with the depression that he is feeling in his society.

After reading "Sonny's Blues", the first thing to analyze is plotline, which is the basis

In James Baldwin’s, “Sonny’s Blues” the story is told in first-person point of view by Sonny's brother. He remains nameless throughout the story. The narrator offers us a glimpse of both his own life and of Sonny's. There are three examples of how the point of view contributes to the story’s overall meaning.

Sonny, from James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” is portrayed as a sufferer. He struggles with his stagnation in Harlem, his unfulfilled dreams and the disconnect between himself and his only family, his brother. However, not all hope is lost. He serves as a teacher for others, full of knowledge of how one can truly suffer and still triumph (Norton 47). Only when he is finally able to connect with his brother through music, are his “blues” finally heard and he affirms his individuality and ties to the black community. Blues, jazz and bebop are art forms that embody the pain, suffering and loneliness not only of individuals, but of the entire black community. It can trace its lineage back to the time of slavery in the Americas, and continues to evolve with each new generation. The nature of blues and jazz often manifests itself in the talented artists who take part in the tradition. Sonny finds himself in a pattern of self-destruction and despair. As stated by Suzy Goldman, “…these blues belong to all of us, for they symbolize the darkness which surrounds all those who fail to listen to and remain unheard by their fellow men” (Goldman 232).

This is my first time to read “Sonny’s Blues”. I think the reason for this short fiction wrote successful is great in portray the character and story details. The author James Baldwin use great literary elements to depict the story’s develop. I want to analysis the title, plot and flashback use in this short fiction.

Throughout the story, “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin perfectly intertwines varying themes surrounding African Americans in Harlem during the 1950’

What is Sonny communal life? Why does he start using drugs ? Did Sonny became a sell-out? What is the bibical an in In the short story "Sonny's Blues" Mr. Baldwin's most highly acclaimed treatment of his signature themes of nature of identity, race relations in the United States, human suffering, and the function of art. Set in the early 1950s in New York City, the story is narrated by an unnamed man who relates his attempts to come to terms with his long estranged brother, Sonny, a jazz musician. John M. Reilly, noting that an "outstanding quality of the Black literary tradition in America is its attention to the interdependence of personal and social experience," has concluded that "Sonny's Blues" both depicts and manifests the belief that