How Does Baldwin Use Darkness In Sonny's Blues

In James Baldwin’s “Sonny Blues”, the author uses various symbols and themes to elucidate the true meaning of the darkness in the light of its characters. Baldwin utilizes suffering, anger, and imprisonment to illuminate the depth of darkness throughout the brothers lives. A darkness so resilient that it incases various generations to the point where one does not know anything other than its profundity. Then, Baldwin employs music to represent the characters redemption and hope. The light is there to represent the characters hopes and salvations to understand the darkness that encircles them. By the end of the story, Baldwin clarifies the fact that to see the light at the end of the tunnel, one must go through its own darkness.

The darkness in this quote represents the negativity and disadvantages that surround both of their lives in Harlem. The light and darkness in this story both symbolize the hope and struggles that they will continue to face throughout their lives.

Sonny’s blues is an interesting reading in the James Baldwin book. It was written in the first person narrative, in which the narrator was talking about his younger brother who had a heroin addiction and had gotten into a bust. He also talks about their childhood and their mother in this narrative. The author’s writing style roused a number of reactions from me. His powerful use of rhetoric and his subtle use of social critic, I believe captures his audience. I believe from reading this that I grab on to the assumption that Baldwin is religious in a sense and a bit didactic. This reading or short story portrayed the low class way of life and examined how Sonny’s brother lived in the neighborhood where he taught. In the very beginning of the

The short story “Sonny’s Blues” is one of the many classic stories that shows struggles and strife between siblings. This story depicts two brothers who are living in Harlem during the 1950’s. These brothers are both caged, one physically while the other emotionally. "Sonny's Blues" is a short story that was written by James Baldwin that reflects on a pair of brothers bonds through tough times, which could have been avoided had they not had so much miscommunication; the narrator’s lack of understanding and judgment is one of the many reasons why the younger brother fell victim to substance abuse.

In the short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin show the two main characters as ideal opposites of each other. Sonny plays the role of a wistful character, who is an artist and musician who is loving and likes music. He is also very passionate about his music and what he does. The narrator on the other hand is a logical character who basically lives the ideal male life. He is a teacher, husband, and father which is a good life for the ordinary man. With living such a good life, he has to deal with barely any stress or mixed emotions, unlike his brother who has a little more to worry about. James Baldwin made the two main characters extremely different, on purpose, because he wanted them to find the good in one another and eventually change. Even though Sonny and his family had some tragic events in the past, they learned to move on and bounce back. In the short story, James Baldwin shows the importance of loyalty to family and of second chances and acceptance.

James Baldwin?s story ?Sonny?s Blues? is a deep and reflexive composition. Baldwin uses the life of two brothers to establish parallelism of personal struggle with society, and at the same time implies a psychological process of one brother leaving his socially ingrained prejudices to understand and accept the other's flaws.

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 one of the most revered of James Baldwin’s stories; wildly debated for its variance of topics the short story embodies. Racial discrimination, expression of music (Jazz), Harlem’s quandary and Light and Dark imagery are some of the various topics he conveys in this story. Light and Dark motifs contrast with truth and false truth throughout the story, James Baldwin uses this to denote the narrator’s feelings about many situations he faced in life, light also undertones a moral and law-abiding living. It epitomizes a way to survive and a means to save Sonny’s positivity and possible future to anticipate.

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.

Amber LaCourt ENG 0235 Professor Jackson 3/24/18 Response Paper #2 In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin exhibits the themes of a grief, drug abuse, poverty and limited possibilities in the unnamed narrator life. The overall constant reminder of these themes wears down his brother Sonny and some of the other characters in this short story. Some of the characters try to fight these constant reminders and others barely even try.

While growing In Hale, Baldwin encountered some of the elements in the story. I believe that authors rolls isn’t to just write shockingly successful or controversial works of literary but to also reflect a version of reality and some realism in their work so the readers can acknowledge how the society shifted throughout the years. In Sonny’s blues we know about a much darker, vitals and different Harlem than the one we know now. Sonny`s Blues is a message From Baldwin that means breams sight our eyes from reality because they are colorful and we can shape them however we want.

The narrator in “Sonny’s Blues” states “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how many triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.” This quote is in consonance with what the story is portraying, which is that people always endure struggle, but can find themselves progressing forward in life doing what they love to do. In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, the narrator and Sonny are bothers who go down different paths, in which Sonny turns to drugs and the narrator goes to college to become a teacher. Sonny goes to prison for selling and using drugs and the narrator is in disbelief, but he remembers what his mother told him, which is to always watch over and protect his little brother. As darkness pervades, the narrator finds it difficult to be his brother’s keeper, understand the issue with drugs and alcohol, and to understand why so many blacks were physically and mentally imprisoned.

James Baldwin was an African-American writer, who wrote about powerful topics of his time. In most of Baldwin’s works, he described his experience of how it was to live in America as an African-American man. In one of James Baldwin’s best known stories, “Sonny’s Blues”, published in 1957, Baldwin tells the story of two brothers who are in search of their own individualism as African-American men living in Harlem in the 1950’s. The narrator is unnamed throughout the story, but it is clear to the reader that he is the older brother of Sonny. The narrator reads on the newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, was in jail for selling and using drugs.

The story of Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin talks about the relationship of two brothers. One of the main problems we see in this story is the miscommunication between the narrator and his brother. The narrator does not seem to listen to Sonny by ignoring him when he talks to the narrator about his passion for music. Instead, the narrator insists Sonny live with his then fiancée. This action of the narrator shows us that is important to support the family and do not judge them. Sometimes we ignore what the person is telling us and as a consequence, it can turn into never hearing again from that person. The narrator does not have empathy for his brother. He does not understand how Harlem make him feel. This city represents darkness, despair