The Reflection Of A Story

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.

When his brother asked him what he wanted to do, he quickly responded “I’m going to be a musician.” There wasn’t any thinking needed; he knew exactly what he wanted in life. Though the brother’s point of view we get to see how unimpressed he was that Sonny wanted to be a musician. “It seemed -beneath him, somehow,” Sonny’s brother wrote. Though the story is well written in the point of view that it is told in, the weaknesses are that the readers don’t get to see everything through Sonny’s eyes and see his struggles.

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

The narrator goes to a club to watch Sonny and his band play. He begins to understand how deeply his brother feels and thinks, “I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument with the breath of life, his own.”(Baldwin 102) The music gives Sonny a chance to release his hopelessness and depression. Even though the narrator believes Sonny could have done more with his life if he had turned to classical music, he understands that Sonny is being true to who he really is. The anonymous brother, however, has not found

His little brother Sonny is always getting in trouble. He doesn’t go to school, he uses drugs, and he doesn’t do what he is told to do. That is because he does not like life, because the white people are so unfair. After a while and a lot of suffering, Sonny discovers something he is good at. He learns to play the piano, and he is able to do something creative and positive, be successful and have the people’s respect.

When taking English Composition 2 I have learned various things that I can carry through with me throughout the rest of my academic and social life. The class English Composition 2 touched on the components of character, setting, short story, drama, and poetry. With each section and a lecture on each section I have taken away a piece away from each section, one thing that is for sure I will never read literature the same after this class. When talking about character we looked into the story Gorilla My Love and how the story is told through the eyes of a young black girl named Hazel. Concluding from this section of the class I learned that if the characters were to be different characters the story would change as whole. When looking deeper into the concept of setting as a class we had the opportunity to learn how to depict where the setting is, and learn how the setting can make a difference in any type of literature. For the concept of short stories as a student I looked deeper into the story of 20/20. After, a struggle on the topic of short stories I learned the different compontes that go into and are used in making a short story. For an example, the story 20/20 uses the model Freytag’s Pyramid to tell the story line. The component of Drama happened to be my favorite component of the class. I

The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin makes excellent use of multiple literary elements. Namely, I think the writer utilizes symbolism and the nuances of point of view to give the story a deeper connotation that could not be said plainly. The meat of the story is about an unnamed older brother’s relationship and differences with his younger brother, Sonny. Sonny’s aspiration to become a jazz pianist leads him in an opposite direction than his brother, and into a world where the common suffering is dealt with by heroin and music. The fundamental differences between the brothers in their lack of understanding for each other and their gradual acceptance of one another is highlighted and

“Sonny’s Blues” introduces two brothers who have differing mindsets about how to best cope with suffering. The narrator is Sonny’s responsible, unnamed older brother, who follows a very ordered path, using military service, marriage and teaching math to gain stability and escape the downward pull of Harlem. In contrast, younger brother Sonny lives his life like his music hero plays his jazz: improvising. Sonny experiments with drugs, skips school and eventually drops out, all the while feeding his obsession with piano. Sonny’s older brother sees no legitimacy in Sonny’s art and aspirations to become a musician. He disparagingly deems it “to be merely an excuse for the life he led”. The brothers are unable to set their differences aside, and are only reconnected in a time of immense grief, as the brother’s daughter, Grace, dies.

However, the brothers were able to reach a compromise and understanding, understanding the importance of Sonny’s need to be a jazz pianist “…and shook about my brother’s head like a very cup of trembling” implying the narrator finally agreed with the lifestyle his brother lead (Baldwin 149). The acceptance of the offer the narrator experiences an understanding of his brother’s importance of music as a release from existential suggesting (Baldwin,

The struggles that the narrator faces is what to do to help his brother and keep to the promise he made to his mother. Being the older of the two brothers the narrator had to take Sonny under his wing. However, the age difference between them made it very difficult. The narrator tried to reach out to his brother after their mother had passed. For he felt as if he failed to keep his promise he made to his mother, that as the older brother he would always take care of Sonny...trouble is, he don’t know how to help Sonny. “I’d [He’d] never played a role of the older brother quite so seriously before, had scarcely ever, in fact, asked Sonny a damn thing. I [He] sensed myself [himself] in the presents of something I [he] didn’t’ really know how to handle, didn’t understand” (Baldwin 183). When the narrator found that opportunity to reach out to his brother after the funeral. The narrator tries to inquire about Sonny’s future plan. Sonny had told him about his dream of becoming a jazz pianist. The narrator disagrees with the choice that Sonny had made about his future. However, attempting to repair his relationship, the narrator invited Sonny to live with him and is wife. In order to keep an eye and fulfill the promise he made to his mother. During that period, the narrator had suspected that Sonny was experimenting with drugs, but he tried to ignore his suspicions. He told himself that "Sonny was wild, but he wasn't

James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is a story of how a distant and conflicting relationship between two brothers is saved by the powerful message within music. In “Sonny’s Blues” the music portrays a very powerful message. The story begins with Sonny being arrested for heroin use. Sonny’s older brother is a school teacher and did not want to believe that the news was true, “I didn’t want to believe that I’d ever see my brother going down, coming to nothing, all that light in his face gone out, in the condition I’d already seen so many others” (Baldwin 293). Sonny used his music and drugs to distance himself from all the negativity in his life.

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

"Sonny's Blues," by James Baldwin, explores the strained relationship that two brothers the unnamed narrator and Sonny have and how the narrator slowly begins to recognize Sonny's relationship with music. While the narrator is initially baffled by Sonny's dream to become a musician, towards the end of the short story, he recognizes that Sonny depends on music and that it is a driving force in his life, possibly one of the only things that keep him alive.

“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story about two brother’s relationship. The setting of the story is in Harlem, New York after World War II (Shaup). The story starts out with the narrator looking through the paper when he realizes his brother Sonny was in jail for heroin bust. The narrator does not speak to Sonny until his daughter dies. Sonny is released from jail to live with his brother and sister-in-law where he finds his love and passion for music. The narrator left for the Army Sonny realized his love for music has been a burden on the family and joined the Navy. Sonny returned home him and the narrator had a disagreement on how Sonny was living his life and the decisions he had made, and the disagreement ended when Sonny and the narrator go to a jazz club and the narrator sees who Sonny really is and his potential. There are at least three literary devices the author uses to make

I have gained many insights I have gained about descriptive and narrative writing over this course. The one that I will take the most away from the course is my realization of my own tone and voice that I possess in my pieces and how to apply them in a narrative. I have also learned how to develop a tone and voice for others when I am writing a piece from the perspective of them. There are significant contrasts between characters, such as the wicked, selfish Amber and the kindhearted, welcoming Horace from Assignment 3, and I have learned how to establish nuances in dialogue and activity to individualize my characters.