Lenox Avenue Lenox Avenue Analysis

The underlining main point in this story is hope. There are many factors that challenge the life of these characters in this story, but for me, in much aspect this story was reality. The turning point of this story is when Sonny invites his brother to the nightclub in downtown Harlem. Although Sonny’s brother was hesitant he knew it was needed, if he ever desired to have a strong relationship with his brother. Sonny’s brother says “Yet it was clear that, for them, I was only Sonny’s brother. Here I was in Sonny’s world. Or rather: his kingdom. Here, it was not even a question that his veins bore royal blood” (Baldwin). For once the narrator was able to see that his brother was a changed person, and that he did honestly love music. My comparison to this moment would have to be the moment that I took my mom out to eat last Mothers day.

The setting of this story takes place in Harlem in the 1960’s. Though in 1954 when the Brown vs. Broad case found that racially segregates schools were not equal at all, there was still the transition where blacks were still being treated unequally. Harlem was not the ideal living area, but for Sonny and his family it was what they could afford. This may have to do with why Sonny got into drugs. He was in a primarily black community where there wasn’t much opportunity for them to do the things they wanted. It may have been the people Sonny would hang out with, the thought that he wasn’t going anywhere in life, or the thought that his family needed more money, that made him ultimately resort to selling drugs.

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

Sonny had learned his own ways to deal with the “ambiguity and irony of Negro life” since leaving prison. Sonny had discovered a way to find his freedom that worked best for him and that was through music. He started to play Bebop. By playing his music he let go of his frustrations that came with being another unsafe black person living in this place. His father would always be negative to his mother when she would bring up the idea of wanting to move to another neighborhood. He would think that any place they could move to would be the same and all be unsafe for children and for anybody. Through playing and being a part of music Sonny had discovered a solution to his marginalization and being left alone from his own society. Sonny was able to reconnect with African Diaspora by learning to play blues music and Bepop. He was then able to escape the social and economic issues that he faced living in the ghetto which also allows this reconnection to represent his roots. This music was his solution and only way that Sonny could feel free. When Sonny would play blues, his brother and many other people were able to understand and also through his music he could help them be free too.

When asked by Sonny if they could take a detour before being dropped off by the cab driver, the narrator agreed and described the environment with a disgusting taste, "So we drove along, between the green of the park and the stony, lifeless elegance of hotels and apartment buildings, toward the vivid, killing streets of our childhood." (page 52) This would show the narrator's thoughts on Harlem being a negative environment and thinking nothing good can come from running these streets. He also called it a "trap" (page 2 p6), to further show the dead end reality they lived in. Having escaped the "trap", graduating college, becoming an algebra teacher, and having a family, the narrator has a concerning responsible-like personality. Even though they moved, he still thinks his location would have negative effects on Sonny again. "The moment Sonny and I started into the house I had the feeling that I was simply bringing him back into the danger he had almost died trying to escape." (page 53 p1) This would further show his concerning responsible-like personality. Having been given the responsibility to watch over his younger brother Sonny from the talk with his mother (who passed away), he feels as though the burden of Sonny succeeding and even living rest on his hands. Throughout the story, he

Many tragic events happen in this short story that allows the reader to create an assumption for an underlying theme of racism. John Baldwin has a way of telling the story of Sonny’s drug problem as a tragic reality of the African American experience. The reader has to depict textual evidence to prove how the lifestyle and Harlem has affected almost everything. The narrator describes Harlem as “... some place I didn’t want to go. I certainly didn’t want to know how it felt. It filled everything, the people, the houses, the music, the dark, quicksilver barmaid, with menace; and this menace was their reality” (Baldwin 60). Another key part in this story is when the narrator and Sonny’s mother is telling the story of a deceased uncle. The mother explains how dad’s brother was drunk crossing the road and got hit by a car full of drunk white men. Baldwin specifically puts emphasis on the word “white” to describe the men for a comparison to the culture of dad and his brother.

Everyone is born in different times with different opportunities. Some of us have to struggle to make ends meet and others are born with money at their feet already. “Sonny’s Blues” opens up in Harlem with the narrator on a bus reading a newspaper learning that his brother, Sonny, has been arrested for selling heroin. Sonny’s brother takes him in after he is released from jail. However, his brother is scared if he lets him back into his home he will fall into his old ways. Sonny’s true passion in life is to become a Jazz musician but his family doesn’t believe in what he wants to do. Sonny want’s his brother to go with him to a jazz club to see how he actually is and not just seeing him as a dope selling drug addict. At the end of Sonny’s set, he realizes that Jazz has helped Sonny to stay free and express himself. Through Marxist criticism Baldwin highlights the power struggle of the main characters and the world in which they live.

Jazz music for Sonny meant the exact opposite however, music was more like the light at the end of a tunnel. Jazz music was one of the few positive things in Sonny’s life. Music represented passion and an escape from the world for Sonny. It was where he could do no one harm its where he felt the most free to do as he pleases without being judged. The two brothers were cut from different fabric, and often find it hard to understand one another. Music seemed to be the bridge that managed to fill the gap of understanding between the two, it brought them closer than they have ever been. When the narrator goes to watch his brother perform he learns things he’d never known about his brother before, he then began to appreciate the wonder and terror of becoming a musician.

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.

Given a short account of their social backgrounds, it is not surprising that they be driven by different urges to escape the situation in which they are. On the one hand, the Narrator in “Sonny’s Blues” is evidently trying to escape the black people’s burden which is illustrated in the following excerpt: “ So we drove along [...] killing streets of our childhood. These streets hadn’t changed, though a housing project jutted up out of them now like rocks in the middle of a boiling sea. Most of the houses in which we had grown up had vanished, as had the stores from which we had stolen, the basements in which we had first tried sex, the rooftops from which we had hurled tin cans and bricks” . He does so by neglecting his identity, that is to say, his roots, and clinging to the white community’s conventions and lifestyle. However, he seems unaware of the fact that what he is escaping from, is his identity rather than a mere place or situation. He says: “It might be said, perhaps, that I had escaped after all, I was a school teacher...” In fact, he not only escapes by becoming a school teacher but he also does so by identifying himself with classical music, which seems to him the only acceptable type, even to the extent of ignoring completely, for example , who Charlie Parker, father of the modern jazz style, is.

In “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, the author uses the setting to create a feeling of entrapment and suffering by limited possibilities. The setting of this story sets the scene for what the characters have to endure on a day to day basis. The suffering of the people from poverty, prostitution, drugs, crime, and lack of opportunities is something the characters must face daily. Harlem is described in the story like one of the main characters. There is always darkness and inherent danger lurking just below the surface.

The parallel in Sonny's Blues I found the most interesting was the parallel between Sonny and the Narrator and their Father and his late brother. Throughout the story, the Narrator shows a deep dedication to his brother. When his mother informs the Narrator "what happened to his [father's] brother," she presents the story as a cautionary tale for the Narrator regarding his own brother and hopes that he will prevent Sonny's demise (186). The Narrator's mother sees that the metaphorical "car kept on a-going, and it ain't stopped" and is determined to protect her youngest son from the discrimination and targeting that African American people still face, even in New York (187). However, despite promising his mother that he wouldn't "let nothing

The development of the plot stands out as one of the most crucial elements of the story. From the very beginning, the narrator discovers that Sonny has been arrested for his drug use. This action engenders the narrator to reflect on his relationship with Sonny. The discovery of Sonny 's arrest quickly conveys to us a point that is so central to the story. Following the introduction of plot is the conflict. The conflict of the story centers around the narrator and Sonny arguing about Sonny 's decision to become a jazz musician. This conflict,however, has happened before the situation in the introduction of the story but is mentioned further in the story. Sonny 's desire to become a jazz player is seen as a waste of time by the narrator. Consequently, tension is formed between the brothers because of their lack of agreement on the issue. The tension between the brothers gets even more complicated when Sonny moves into the narrator 's apartment. During this part of the story, the narrator and Sonny try to come to terms with themselves and each other. The climax of the story is when the narrator and Sonny argue in the apartment. This is the most important part of the story because both brothers have a brutally honest argument. The narrator discusses Sonny 's drug use, his misunderstanding of Sonny as a musician, and Sonny 's frustration in life. This argument between the two brothers resolves when Sonny invites the narrator to come hear him play. The

In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" a pair of brothers try to make sense of the urban decay that surrounds and fills them. This quest to puzzle out the truth of the shadows within their hearts and on the streets takes on a great importance. Baldwin meets his audience at a halfway mark: Sonny has already fallen into drug use, and is now trying to return to a clean life with his brother's aid. The narrator must first attempt to understand and make peace with his brother's drug use before he can extend his help and heart to him. Sonny and his brother both struggle for acceptance. Sonny wants desperately to explain himself while also trying to stay afloat and out

On the heroin-riddled streets of Harlem, the narrator of “Sonny’s Blues” has given up hope for his brother, because he believes that the rampant drug community has consumed him. As their distant relationship drifts closer, the narrator begins to see through Sonny’s eyes, but fails to see the benefit in Sonny seemingly throwing himself into the fire by becoming a musician. It is only during Sonny’s deepest struggle that his need for this artistic expression becomes apparent. While staying with Isabel’s family, the frantic reverberations screamed a message to all that could hear, because “Sonny was at that piano playing for his life”(1946). As comrade after comrade falls to the inherent greed created by desire, Sonny stays sane only by continuing to express his dreams and bemoan his failures through music.