The Light and Darkness of Suffering Depicted in Sonny's Blues

In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James H. Pickering, a brother is trying to understand what has led his younger brother, Sonny, to drug addiction and how to help his relationship with Sonny. The instructive purpose of this analysis is to examine how James Baldwin uses the narrators characteristics to construct the central conflict of the story. The two opposing forces that create the central conflict are presented as a person versus self, by a clash of two feelings. On one hand the parental characteristic of the narrator wants to help his brother. The other a closed - minded characteristic of the narrator wants to push his brother away. The central idea of the story is trying to overcome an internal conflict to be able to save relationships with those we love most but tend to push away. A change in thinking and acceptance moves those struggling back together where they want to be.

James Baldwin’s, “Sonny’s Blues,” illustrates the story between two different brothers as they struggle to discover the character of one another. “Sonny’s Blues” is narrated through the older brother’s point of view, as he portrays their difficulties in growing up, separation, and reunion. Baldwin purposely picks to tell the story in the first person point of view because of the omniscient and realistic effects it contribute to the story overall. The mother, father, and Sonny all express their accounts to the older brother, making him the perfect character to tell the story. In addition, the first person point of view allows the reader to experience the vicarious feelings that the

Thus, the narrator’s father dealt with the same struggle that the narrator and Sonny are facing now. The narrator wants to protect his brother from the darkness of the world that has always threatened to invade their lives but he fails to do so as he is torn by his emotions, which shift quickly from love to hate and he is also unable to express his emotions, feelings and concern towards Sonny.

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 experience of using music as an emotional escape when one is experiencing frustrating times is one that is almost universal. This application of music, more specifically the blues, is especially true for the title character in James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues.” Told from the perspective of his older brother, the writing depicts the hardships that Sonny has been through, including the loss of both of his parents and the ordeal of going to jail for drugs, all of which result in a strained relationship between him and his brother. In "Sonny's Blues," Sonny has a deep dedication and emotional connection to the blues. The author depicts this through the continuation of an extended metaphor, the description of music being played, and the application of blues as a narrative device.

Ultimately we all find ourselves in that moment when our last breath is released from our body, dieing is our final destination, but what truly determines the worth of our life is the fight and the will power each individual endures in order to continue living. In the story “Sonny’s Blues” written by Jamis Baldwin, Baldwin writes about the suffering we all face in life and how difficult it is to make it through the darkness when one can not see the light. It is the acknowledgement that one did not give up on his or herself that makes life worth living. Sonny and the Narrator's life chronicle emulates the raw uncensored reality of life. Although Sonny made horrible deleterious life decisions, it is important to acknowledge that these decisions

Yet both these very different brothers are united in experience something inevitable as human beings: suffering. Sonny seems to dive deeper into his suffering, tapping into it as a form of expression. Older brother walls himself off from his pain, turning negative and bitter about many aspects of his existence. In the end, Sonny's open expression of his suffering creates a bridge between the two brothers.

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.

Sonny’s Blues is a short story written by James Baldwin. The story takes place in Harlem during the early 1950’s. The story talks about two brothers working on their broken relationship. The story begins with the narrator reading the newspaper about his little brother Sonny getting arrested, because he was caught in a heroin bust. In the story the author James Baldwin uses a biblical allusion, a cup of trembling, to compare Sonny’s suffering to the suffering servant, since they have similar suffering. As you read the story and the verse you notice a lot of similarity between them. Reasons why, because characters in both the story and the verse feel trapped in where they live, most of them suffer in life, many seek and get guidance, and most of them heal in certain ways.

In James Baldwin 's short story "Sonny 's Blues" a young man questions his brotherly obligations after finding that his younger brother has been arrested for using drugs. In the attempt to rectify his younger brother 's behavior and life, the young man faces his own feelings for his brother and comes to terms with the life his brother Sonny lives. The developments of certain elements-plot, character, point of view, setting, symbolism-in the story help accentuate the narrator 's struggles and theme(s) of the story.

In “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin shows how the bond of brotherhood can withstand many disheartening choices one can make in life. “Sonny’s Blues” is a story about a brother who has made a life for himself the best he could. The unnamed character in the story describes the heartbreaking experience of witnessing his younger brother, Sonny, fight to stay sober. While the unnamed character grew up, joined the military, and got married; his brother Sonny, took a less travelled path that lead to some trouble. When Sonny was younger, his musical dreams seemed to upset the unnamed character and he felt his brother needed to grow up and make a real life decision about a career. The unnamed character didn’t believe

Initially, he had refused to acknowledge his pain and suffering instead, he choose to ignore them. His suffering was immense and this is evident when he says "A great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long, while I taught my classes algebra. It was a special kind of ice. . . . Sometimes it hardened and seemed to expand until I felt my guts were going to come spilling out or that I was going to choke or scream" (Baldwin 12). After listening to his performance, he was able to uinderstand the power of music and its importance to Sonny in dealing with his addcition problem. From that time, he became more understanding of Sonny and he was able to learn to strugle and endure his pain and suffering. Initially, he never undersatood what pain and suffering was and how it can be overcome. He finally realized that, suffering can be transformed into a communal art like music and from there it dissappears completely. Through Sonny’s music, the narrator was able to understand his life and pain and accepts himself. In addition, their connectiuon in music becomes a catalyst and genuine epiphany for the

In the world of Harlem, New York the cruelties of the world become incandescently prominent. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” addresses the foreboding power of pain in a world where someone’s coping skills dictate the course of their life. The story depicts a person’s options to ignore pain, create a reason for pain, or accept pain and live within it. Baldwin explains the theme of pervasive pain and parent’s attempt to shield children from it through the characters. Their reaction to pain constructs a motif of pain management.

Suffering is something that everyone has to persevere at some point in their life. One thing makes us unique is how we deal with these hardships. The characters in “Sonny’s Blues” endure many difficult situations. How they choose to deal with these situations effects their entire life. To begin the story, we see that the narrator’s brother Sonny has already dealt with his suffering by using heroin. Then the narrator’s daughter dies of polio, but his pain helped him reach out to Sonny. He brought Sonny into his home to live. The story then takes a turn, and it jumps back to before the boys parents died. Their mother tells a story to the narrator about his father. His father’s brother was hit by a car of white men and he died right in front of him. He never was the same after the incident. Then she made him promise to take care of Sonny and not let him fall no matter how hard it is. After the death of their parents Sonny expressed his yearning to be a musician to his brother, and he shot the idea down. Sonny pursued his dreams anyway, but went down the wrong paths. By the end of the story when the brothers are reunited the narrator finally

So far the stories for this class have surprisingly been pretty good. I was never a big reader, so when I was required to read something for school, I normally dreaded it. After reading the first story, “Story of an hour” I was pretty confused, but after reading it again, I soon understood it. I liked this one because of all the details that was included in the story. It was definitely an emotional story that kept surprising me. First we hear about the death of her husband and her reaction was to be upset, but then she begins to be optimistic about everything. I found this quite weird which lead me to question her and her husband’s relationship. Soon after, we find that her husband was never really dead and with this news Louise died from