Similarities Between Sonny's Blues And Everyday Use

Establishing and maintaining a certain identity mostly depends on the setting. The setting allows us to analyze someone at a deeper level. Considering the time, place and the circumstances around under which they respond allows us to explore them and determine their identity. In the short story “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin conveys the message of how one goes about establishing and maintaining their identity on different levels by using elements of setting. The author uses elements of setting several times to convey the message but some of the prominent uses are the military service, life in Harlem and especially the use of

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, is a story of a black family composed of a mother and her two daughters: Maggie and Dee. Walker does an excellent job illustrating her characters. There are all types of characters in this short story from round to static. Dee is a flat character, yet Walker uses Dee’s character to warn people of what might happen if they do not live properly. Walker describes Dee’s character as arrogant and selfish, and through Dee’s character one is allowed to perceive the wicked effect of an egotistical world.

In each of the two short stories, “Sonny’s Blues” and “Everyday Use,” allow people who read these stories to make discoveries of the lives of African American families. These people who are apart of these families have to live in society and be able to deal with struggles and difficulties around them from being equal but separate at the

James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” conveys how music serves as a form of communication, both at a small and large scale. Charting the development of the communication between Sonny and his brother allows us to view how the unnamed brother fails to meet Sonny at his emotional level by not understanding his pain. I argue that the text introduces Sonny as someone who “has never been talkative” to set the foundation for his growth from being voiceless to speaking both vibrantly and effortlessly through music (Baldwin 113). Over the course of the text, the unnamed brother begins to listen to Sonny to discover the connection between music and emotion. Therefore, the text argues that music is a crucial mechanism to communicate with one another—more specifically

The writer was a poor boy growing up. He was also a Negro, so things were bad for him and his family in white America. He probably felt sad every day of his childhood so he turned to books for entertainment and maybe escape. When he started reading, he found that he liked it and wanted to create stories for other people to enjoy, but he was a poor Negro boy who could not expect help from the whites, so he taught himself to write. That is similar to Sonny, who taught himself to play the piano.

The Harlem Renaissance was a time of revival and awakening in which the African American community produced a new form of cultural identity. After years of oppression and slavery, African Americans struggled to discover their own distinctive culture. It was through the literature and artistry of the Harlem Renaissance that the African American community began to express the suffering and resentment they truly experienced. In addition, the movement allowed them to find a way to escape their hardships. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” and Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues” address the addiction, poverty, and violence that surrounded African Americans and the triumph of life that was captured in their attempt to escape the suffering.

In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" the symbolic motif of light and darkness illustrates the painful nature of reality the two characters face as well as the power gained through it. The darkness represents the actuality of life on the streets of the community of Harlem, where there is little escape from the reality of drugs and crime. The persistent nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a means of escaping the darkness of their lives. The main character, Sonny, a struggling jazz musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing the creativity and artistic ability that lies within him. While using music as a way of creating a sort of structure in his life, Sonny attempts to step into the light, a life

In the first paragraph the ambiguousness comes to light as he states "Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about." It could have a literal meaning in the sense that Creole could be singing of the blues, actually speaking the words and the definition. It could also mean that the music itself tells the story of the blues. The notes and the melody intertwine to hit a chord as no words ever could. To convey a meaning as no tale ever could. To truly bind the narrator to his brother as no conversation ever could. It is with this paragraph that the narrator really begins to understand his brother and perhaps begins to understand a little more about himself. Baldwin uses this paragraph to describe the affect of music on a human in terms of finding the good in the bad and embracing life as it is. He chooses words in his description commonly associated with music, such as "beat" with"He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the music tightened and deepened apprehension began to beat the air.' In fact the sentence itself seems to move in "beat." He uses colloquial language that you would expect to hear from someone in a jazz joint with phrases such as "he and his boys" and "keeping it new." The last few sentences intricately weave together the ideas of the music and its parallel in life.

Continuing with racism, it sets a dark undercurrent that flows through "Sonny's Blues". It is faintly referenced directly, but its presence can be felt continuously. For example, Baldwin mentions beat-up housing projects (a.k.a the ghetto: a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups.) that rise out of Harlem like ..."rocks in the middle of the boiling sea"... (Baldwin 566). The projects represent the impact of racism on a oppressed community. Likewise, much of the narrator's anxiety on behalf of his students can be attributed to the fact that they, like Sonny, are young African American men living

In the short story "Sonny's Blues," James Baldwin writes about the struggles the brothers face while growing up in Harlem. Even though the author writes about the struggles Harlem brings to their lives, the authors writing communicates incredible worry for the connection between the siblings. The older brother which is known as the narrator throughout the story finds himself endeavoring the parent role but is shutting down the dreams of his younger brother and regularly expresses his disbelief that Sonny can achieve anything by following his dreams and becoming a musician. "You know people can't always do exactly what they want to do"(Baldwin 59). The narrator expresses his disbelief because there is no obvious profit in becoming a musician. As like "Sonny's Blues," the older brother in, "The Rich Brother," written by,

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.

James Baldwin wrote “Sonny’s Blues” (1957) about two brothers who grew up in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City known for its jazz and African American Heritage. “Sonny’s Blues” portrays Sonny and his brother, the narrator, growing up facing hardships and depicts how they react to each situation differently. Sonny, the main protagonist of the story grows up a quiet introspective person who, eventually, will become a jazz musician. Sonny has a heroin addiction that he actively is trying to battle, which is the reason he wanted to leave Harlem. James Baldwin’s mother left his father to drug abuse before moving to Harlem, NY. Growing up he was faced with lots of responsibilities and hardships, facing racial discrimination throughout school.

In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the narrator, who just goes by Mama, is telling the story of her two children. Mama is the patriarch of the Johnson family. In this story, she compares Maggie, the youngest and more naïve daughter, to Dee, the oldest and ‘smartest’ daughter, and reminisces on when Dee came home to visit (402-408). Walker brings about a story that is significant to African American heritage and how one should appreciate and have knowledge of it. This story, which takes places in the Deep South, has various symbols that represent aspects of the African-American culture and/or heritage and the mentality of the Johnson family.

Alice Walker's story Everyday Use questions the appreciation of one’s family heritage while examining the struggles present within African American culture. The rivalry between two sisters, each who pursue different values and interests throughout their life, bring out this ethical question in the spotlight. Though both have grown up in the same conditions, each holds different interpretations on their African American culture. By developing the characters and establishing a setting relevant to the story, Alice Walker highlights in-depth the principles of heritage as well as the differences between the main characters, Mama, Maggie, and Dee.

Growing up in the late 60’s as an African American in the South, Alice Walker has had to withstand many of the oppressions black people faced at the time. Her direct experience with the torment of being prejudiced by her skin color and the national movements against this, have been the fundamental basis to the themes in her writings. In her story “Everyday Use,” she depicts the different understandings of culture between a literate daughter, Dee, and her mother and sister who have not been educated and yet live a traditional simple life together. Through a series of events the author explores the adverse views on heritage among the younger and older generations of African-Americans. Within the historical context, it was time where Blacks