Empathy In Sonny's Blues And Fences

In the play Fences, by August Wilson, the main character, Troy Maxson is involved in numerous relationships with family members throughout the entire eight years that the story takes place. Troy is a father, husband, and brother to other characters in the play. Unfortunately for Troy, a strong-minded and aggressive man, he constantly complicates the relationships with his family members. Troy's hurtful actions and words make it nearly impossible for him to sustain healthy relationships with not only his two sons, but also his wife and brother.

In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin a schoolteacher from the city of Harlem struggles with life and figuring out how to helped his troubled brother. All though named Sonny’s Blues the main character is actually Sonny’s brother who is the narrator and goes through his life and how he reacts to the many problems his younger brother has come into. The brothers grew up in the poverty stricken city of Harlem where the brothers had to avoid drugs and violence constantly. Growing up, Sonny struggled to stay out of trouble and ended up making some bad decisions throughout his life and ends up landing him in jail and addicted to heroin. The un-named brother of Sonny who is the narrator of the story begins to

“Her voice reminded me of what heroin feels like...it makes you feel...distant and sure...it makes you feel in control” (pg.27) Sonny’s statement of heroin use can be compared to his admiration of music, and that is because music gave him the same feeling as using heroin. It allowed for him to “feel distant” and “feel in control”.

Both of them have the racism, discrimination, the generation conflicting. The hard period time in which Troy Maxson in Fences, he is an African-American. He has his dream to be a player in the Major Leagues. The racist segregated society destroys the dream of a man. The big suffering which he has to be from his child life until he has a family and the relationships in the rest of his life. A father of his children, a husband of Rose, he volunteers put the big responsibility on his shoulder. He is proud of his protection on his family to be safe. However, the conflict between Cory and Troy, that is a big picture of interculturalism in the relationship between father and son. Troy put the bad thought in his son's head about him by accident. Cory thinks his father never likes him because Troy stops Cory to play football and attend to college. Cory thinks Troy want Cory to be a stupid one, just working for a supermarket. Troy tries to explain the problem and make it clear to Cory. Troy wants his family to be safe. Troy wants to protect all people in his controlling because he knows this feudal society, is never fair and equal to African-American. The fear of Troy is so big to blind to see the future of his son. He is scared of people around him, the White people, America society. The fear of the Black American. they are always the lowest stream of this society. They were exploited labor, they being held as

What has not yet realized is that heroin is in fact the thing controlling him. What his brother has tried to obstruct him from is how the more dependent one gets, the more the drug and its providers takes control of their users. Ultimately, the price of this brief feeling of control is an ocean of even more pain and suffering. Fortunately, Sonny found yet another way to cope with his pain. Sonny is once again able to set aside his tortured mind and find happiness and peace through the keys of his piano instead of destroying his life with heroin. The narrator is finally able to witness his brother in true bliss and in addition, discovering the power of Sonny’s blues: “and it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw [Isabel] again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise” (Baldwin 140). Music will always be there to help with his problems like expressed by Gary Bartz: “Music is my religion. Music is the only thing that has never failed me People let you down, music won't” (Bartz 2). Although the narrator tried to help his brother become the same respectable man that he has built himself up to be, he can finally accept that, Sonny is unique in his own way, finding happiness in the music he plays. Overall, all the narrator wished upon his brother was happiness. Similar to what Freud predicted, Sonny found solace in escaping his everyday hardship with, not death, but music, which gave him the same lifting feeling of

Troy and Cory is all Rose has, she is afraid of losing them and although she does not say anything, she believes the fence will keep them close to her and the bad will stay on the other side of the fence. Rose is a strong black woman who loves and cares for her family and will do whatever it takes to keep them safe and close to her. Troy does not care for the fence, he believes it’s pointless to build the fence therefore, he slowly works on it.

In the play, Fences, Troy seems to have a complicated relationship with every other character in the play. This applies especially to his relationship with his son, Cory. Troy and Cory have many similarities and differences that complicate their relationship. There are many outside factors that also make matters worse.

Through Troy’s perspective, he sees the fence as a barrier between his enemy known as; death. If death gets through the fence, it would have to come through Troy himself, since he believes that instead of loving his family; protecting them has more worth. It is clear Troy starts to build the fence to keep those who are mistreating his family out; although he himself grows distant. We can infer that Rose and Troy’s perspective of the fence had started to collide. Rose had viewed the fence to keep those she values and cherishes within the fence; while after Troy confesses he is cheating on her with Alberta a division with his family is shown. Division with their family occured due to Troy mistreating Rose and not realizing his mistake sooner. This is to show that Troy’s trait of responsibility reinforces the main symbol. Troy had acknowledged his mistakes resulting in a mental and emotional separation between the couple. “[...] A motherless child had got a hard time…. From right now this child got a mother. But you a womanless man. [...]” (Wilson,122) This confirms that even with the presence of Raynell; Rose will not acknowledge Troy for what he used to mean to her. Further into the play it is revealed that even with this rift, Rose continues to communicate with him to keep order within the house, although emotionally her ties have been severed with Troy.

The short story “Cathedral”, by Raymond Carver, is a thought provoking piece that focuses on the transition a man goes through to see the world with his soul. The story gives hope that people can change if given the chance to be better people. Over the course of the story, Carver uses both diction and description to explore themes in religion and morality.

This bitter conversation with the drug user would also be regeneration for the narrator. The drug user states he feels somewhat responsible in Sonny's arrest. In turn, the narrator faces the fact that he feels somewhat responsible for Sonny's arrest. As a result of his guilt and interest in Sonny, the narrator starts to ask the drug user specific questions regarding Sonny's disposition. The drug user has knowledge of the never-ending cycle of abusing drugs and shares this information with the narrator. In return, the older brother feels a regeneration of care for the drug user, who his is viewing as Sonny. This encounter concludes by the drug user requesting money from the narrator. The narrator feels sensitive of the drug users struggles (and failures) in life and gives him more money than requested.

James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, revolves around two adult brothers and their different approaches to life originating from the same roots and shared childhood experiences. Both brothers undergo much suffering, and much of the story describes their different attempts to coping with their depressing lives and achieving redemption. Baldwin has written many short stories and before his career as a writer he was a preacher, his religious background has certainly transferred onto his short stories. The story “Sonny’s Blues”, makes use of biblical symbolism throughout the story to further support the central themes of Suffering and Redemption that the author conveys.

Lives are diverse. Every being that passes by on the street, at school, at work, anywhere lives a completely unique life different from any other individual. Each person that one could meet has attended different schools, travelled to different places, and lived under different circumstances; they all pass by in an instant without a second thought or even a passing glance. These several diverse experiences sculpt diverse individuals with diverse thoughts, opinions, dreams, and motives. However, in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the narrator must converse with an individual that lives an extremely dissimilar life from his own. A blind man, friends with the narrator’s wife and a recent widower, has come to live with the narrator for a while. This sudden change in the narrator’s life does not come easy because of his inherent arrogance and prejudice. Nevertheless, the blind man remains polite and shows the narrator how similar, yet still different their lives are through example as well as an explicit exercise where he holds the narrator’s hands while he draws a cathedral in order to “see” what the cathedral looks like. To assist the reader in fully grasping the impact of this breakthrough in the narrator’s life regarding perspective and various types of human realities, Carver employs a large number of stylistic elements to enhance his writing.

For many of the great musicians of this era, drugs were a constant temptation that Sonny fell into. Addiction is a deadly thing. Drugs helped Sonny cope with his everyday life stresses. The narrator and

There are many themes displayed in Fences like family dynamics (love and betrayal), condition (life and death) and choices (idealism and practicality). The character trait that was examined previously would be important to the development of family dynamics, which would be the love and betrayal that was displayed in the play. As said before, being compassion is having a strong feeling for those who are suffering. Compassion and family dynamics go hand in hand because in the play, there are many situations where being compassion brings the family together, but at the same time, ties may be cut. For example, looking at Troy’s cry for help when he approaches Rose to care for his daughter. Rose is empathetic. She agrees to raise the child as her own but cuts her ties with Troy as he was disloyal to her for another woman. This trait will also relate to the main symbol in the play, which would be the fences, which is frequently mentioned in the play. Fences would symbolize the many relationships that bond and break apart in their backyard. Being compassionate in this play enhanced some

Troy is definitely more stern with Cory. I feel like Troy is looking out for Cory and is worried about his life more than he is with Lyons. For example, when Lyons comes and asks for money occasionally and to say hello to his father, Troy typically will give him money. With Cory, he tells him to get a job and quit his passion for football, while he does not really care for Lyons music and puts no effort to try to encourage him to get a job to actually support himself. In my opinion, he has two different personalities for his two sons. In the beginning of Fences, Troy tells Lyons to get a job, but Lyons says the labor work is not for him. Lyons needs to “live” so he pursues music and asks for money from Troy from time to time (410-422). This