Read "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin and respond on the blog. As a class, let's think about the plot structure. Then, work your way through the other elements of fiction. Read each other's blogs and let's see how much of the text we can cover as a class. (In other words, everyone should find a particular angle of the story to comment on. Do NOT cover the whole darn story as an individual.)
I look forward to your responses,
Mr. P. ;)
James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues, like many well constructed stories, creates a direct connection between the structure of its narrative and messages it wants to convey. The story is predominantly made up of flashbacks, beginning in the characters present day and diving deep into their past, proceeding chronologically from there, until the plot resurfaces back in the present to conclude the story. This may seem like a strange way to structure a story, as not only are all the plot points told out of chronological order, but the story of the past has no obvious bearing on the events in the present, at least on a surface level. However, while unconventional, it is this plot structure that drives all of the themes and messages of the story. Sonny’s Blues is a story about people's relationships to past tragedies, the struggle to acknowledge them in order to change. Our main characters pasts are fraught with tragedies that they refuse to dwell on. Their parents died, the narrator's daughter died, Sonny slipped into heroin addiction twice and went to jail for it. Yet as the narrator recounts these events one after the other, he treats them sterilely, lacking any emotional introspection as he overviews them from the present. The narrator actively references all of the events outcomes before he retells them so the reader already knows how they end, showing how the narrator does not treat the past with any special narrative or emotional gravitas, instead referring to past events as simple facts to be referenced from time to time. In addition, the way the flashbacks are narrated, lacking text breaks between events years apart, causes them to flow together like one stream of conscience transforming the past into a distant dream-like place, far away from reality. This is mirrored in how the narrator treats his brother. When he first learns of Sonny’s imprisonment, the narrator remarks that “he became real to me again (41).” His brother has been absent from his life for so long that the narrator literally stopped thinking about him as real. In addition, after Sonny gets out of prison, the narrator still treats him like he did before prison, humoring him without treating him seriously, feigning humor to diffuse tense situations. He has refused to change and has attempted to push many past experiences from his mind. Sonny on the other hand is the opposite. In the flashbacks he see Sonny as a well meaning but overly ambitious and frustrated young man, while when we meet him in the present he is more courteous and knowledgeable about himself and his weaknesses. His time in rehabilitation has caused him to look back on his troubled history and try to understand it. He says “I couldn’t tell you when Mama died-- but the reason I wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from drugs (60)” acknowledging the reasons behind his actions that he didn’t recognize in the past. By doing this, he changes as a person, maybe not completely and not forever, but he does change. By comparing the characters past selves with their present selves, how they think about their past tragedies, we can see that the narrator refuses to dwell on the tragedies that have befallen his family while his brother is introspective about his past and has changed because of it. We come to understand that all the conflict and problems within the story stem from our narrator’s refusal to acknowledge and become emotional about his painful family past, the conflict being his lack of respect for his brother.
ReplyDeleteThis is really amazing Sam!!!
DeleteIn “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, I felt as though the plot progressed whenever the narrator experienced something in present time which triggered a connection to his past with Sonny. The story begins with him reading about Sonny’s troubles in the newspaper, which sets up the descriptions of Sonny as a young kid when “his face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it; he’d had wonderfully direct brown eyes, and a great gentleness and privacy” (41). Then the letter Sonny sent him a while later causes him to keep in constant touch and led to Sonny coming to live with him, Isabel and their sons. When Sony first comes and they are in the taxi cab driving through the city past the streets they grew up on, he reminisces on the years of their youth reminding him of the times that shaped both of them, “yet as the cab moved uptown through streets which seemed, with a rush, to darken with dark people, and as I covertly studied Sonny’s face, it came to me that what we both were seeking through our separate windows was that part of ourselves which had been left behind” (47). We get a glimpse of their childhoods and how the way they were raised and how their surroundings impacted the course of their lives. Later, the narrator is trying is struggling to find out if Sonny feels safe within himself, and the next paragraph begins with a memory concerning being “safe”. The memory explains their lives with their parents before they died, and we get to see how they were back then which makes the people they are now more clear. From this memory we get to see the narrators role in his brothers life, his mother put alot of trust in him to protect and take care of Sonny and this makes thier present dynamic make more sense. Once we finally read about Sonny’s teenage years living with Isabel and her parents, I think that we finally see the full and real Sonny. Isabel’s decription of him, “it wasn’t like living with a person at all, it was like living with a sound” (54), lets us grasp him as a person and it feels sort of as if a fog has been lifted from the mystery of his character. The narrators strategically placed flashbacks and connections carefully pace us into fully getting to know and understanding Sonny as a person and his dynamic with his brother.
ReplyDeleteContinued: We see this problem solved at the very end of the story, when Sonny performs a blues number that brings up the pain and sadness of the past, forcing the narrator to finally face his own tragedies, and through it finally change and become a more emotional and sympathetic person. He remembers his mother's face and realizes the hardships she must have experienced in her own life, and he remembers his daughter's death and the effect it has on his wife, and is brought to tears by this. After this reminiscing he buys Sonny and his band drinks, signifying his new understanding and empathy he has for his brother and his family. All of this comes from the use of flashbacks by contrasting with the events of the present and through the analysis of the manner the past was addressed by the first person narrator. We learn through these flashbacks and the effect they have on the characters that without introspection into the past, we can never understand the desires and lives of those around us. At least that's what I got from it anyway
ReplyDeleteSonny’s Blues starts with the death of this mysterious Sonny from the narrator’s point of view, then it leads to the past and that’s when we find out they are brothers. There is a parallel between their dad and the dead uncle, where the narrator is like the dad, and Sonny is like the dead uncle. I feel like the turning point is after when their mom tells the narrator about how the dead musical uncle affects their dad, and there is Sonny who decides, “... I want to play with--- jazz musicians… I want to play jazz” (51), which makes the narrator even more scared for his little brother. It all builds up to the climax when the narrator gets to listen to Sonny’s music at last. That moment is so touching. The narrator believes “he could help [them] to be free if [they] would listen, that he would never be free until [they] did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, [he] heard what he had gone through” (63). The narrator finally sees what he didn’t see in Sonny before--- the passion for music. He was worried that his brother wouldn’t be serious about his future, but he realizes that it’s time to let go. There’s more to the music that it brings memories back to the narrator, and at the end, he is proud of his brother. In a sense the story has a happy ending because the conflicts between the brothers are resolved. I mean it ends on a good note, where Sonny sounds like Jesus to me.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Sonny was just arrested? But I did find the timeline of the story confusing, did he die after the last scene of the story?
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ReplyDelete“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin creates an intimate link between the reader by introducing us to the narrator's past and present. The article about Sonny’s apparent arrest triggers the narrator into the past and begins the story. The narrator's past allows the reader a clear depiction into his/her brothers problemed life and his troubled path. The plot thickens as Sonny expresses an interest for Jazz but has the idea sidelined by the narrator due to his/her lack of confidence in his/her brother. It seems that Sonny has made so many mistakes that the narrator has taken the blame on how his/her brother has turned out. However, when Sonny skips classes and ends up disappearing it adds on to the guilt due to his/her little brother Sonny once again failing in life. The narrator is so ashamed about his/her brother he/she expresses, “I'm glad Mama and Daddy are dead and can't see what's happened to their son”, due to the responsibility he/she feels in how his/her brother has turned out. As I learned more about the narrator's past, I felt as if the narrator felt guilty about how his/her brother had repeatedly failed in life. When he/she first learns about his/her brother from the newspaper, the narrator seems to rationalize his/her brother's arrest by normalizing it. He/she comes to the conclusion that his/her very own students may be, “popping off needles every time they went to the head,” due to the guilt he/she feels about it. He/she even offers Sonny a place to stay in his/her own apartment and an opportunity to finish college to get his/her little brother back on track. The narrator's sense of guilt is what fuels the plot of the story and is what drives him/her in helping his/her brother by imposing his/her own decisions on Sonny. His/her sense of guilt is what ultimately drives Sonny away to pursue Jazz and allows him/her to find out what his/her brother is truly made of.
ReplyDeleteI felt that James Baldwin wrote “Sonny’s Blues” in a way that allowed the reader to obtain a deep understanding of where the characters were coming from and how that led them to where they were in the end. As the narrator, Sonny’s brother, shifts from the present to flashbacks of his past, you can see how different influences in Sonny’s life made up the foundation to his problems he had in the present. For instance, when Sonny’s mother tells the narrator (Sonn’y’s brother) about how his father’s brother was killed, she tells him that “[He] may not be able to stop nothing from happening [to Sonny]. But [Sonny’s brother] got to let [Sonny] know [he’s] there” (51). This moment foreshadows the end of the story when Sonny’s brother is there for him listening to his blues and listening to how Sonny is feeling. Baldwin structures the story by including different aspects of Sonny’s life that explore how he ended up the way he did playing music with all of his soul in front of his brother to show him “all that he had gone through...and [how] he was giving it back, as everything must be given back” (63). As you realize, after you have been given some background of Sonny’s life, that Sonny first wanted to leave Harlem to get away from drugs, then later recognizes that “there’s no way not to suffer” (59), you view the story with a different view; you see that Sonny was someone who suffered greatly, but in the end he could make peace with it and continue his life through music because it allowed him to be heard and was a “new way to make [others] listen” (63).
ReplyDeleteIn Sonny’s Blues the reader is thrown immediately into the plot of the story as the major conflict is introduced within the first few lines and everything unfolds immediately after that. There is really no exposition in which you learn about the narrator and his background but it is slowly revealed as the story moves along. The plot in Sonny’s Blues in somewhat similar to that of In the Lake of the Woods, not in the sense that the actions are the same but in that it is not linear and much of it happens within the mind of the narrator. The flow of the plot is often interrupted by flashbacks which are brought about through words or actions reminding the narrator of his and his brothers past, things that could have lead to his brothers addiction. The plot seems to be driven by the narrator's stream of consciousness, one event and memory leading into another. He may start out speaking of his father, “on the lookout for something better”(48), and wind up speaking of his mother’s pale blue sunday outfit. Though the plot is not linear and the topics shift almost constantly the flow of the story is not interrupted due to the fact that you are always informed on how he wound up speaking about one thing and then the next, his voice is easy to follow and personal. The reader gets to know the narrator intimately, though never formally introduced to him, his voice and the history he provides in the plot is revealing in a way that you don’t even recognize that he is spilling his soul to you.
ReplyDeleteYEs! EXActly this!!
DeleteThe story Sonny’s Blues is written in a non linear form, beginning is in the first person of the main character, then going through the history of the story, and then returning back to present day. This is similar to In the Lake of the Woods, as time does not follow its normal rules. I think that this is a very interesting tactic when writing a good story. It enables the author to throw the reader straight into the story without giving any prior information the the plot, and slowly give out details and information when it’s necessary. But by doing this, the author skips the first two parts of the plot line, the intro and rising action. The reader starts off with what seems to be the climax, because they start with knowing that something happened to Sonny. I thought that this was an interesting way to begin, because the reader could make up what they thought happened to Sonny.. When I read the story, I originally thought that Sonny was one of the main characters students who had killed himself, but I obviously ended up be very wrong. THis tactic allows the reader to be wrong, and I think that is very creative. Also, throughout the rest of the book, little by little the author gives the reader more details about the story. The author uses the falshbacks to tell us that the main character is black, and to tell us important information about Sonny and his upbringing. Using the flashbacks was a great way to give the reader more detail that would have been hard to give in the present tense.
ReplyDeleteI also first assumed Sonny was a student as they introduced the narrator as teacher. I may be mistaken but I feel like this detail of him being a teacher wasn't necessary for the story.
DeleteI was also confused by the teacher information especially because the narrator said that his teaching job allowed him to get out of the projects, but then he later describes his home and he still lives in a project complex. It was a combination of the timeline and the details that confused me
DeleteAs previously mentioned by several others, Baldwin’s writing style of including flashbacks in his story of the character’s childhood helped to intensify his plot, major themes and character development. By starting off the story with the unknown relationship between the main character and Sonny initially drew readers in. Personally, I wondered why the main character cared so much about an arrest report. As the story unfolds it becomes clear how the conflict of the story personally affects the main character. As someone who always looks at the psychological side of things when I learned why Sonny was arrested I started to wonder what led up to his drug abuse. Not a moment later did I began to read a flashback from Sonny’s childhood. By including this flashback at the perfect time, Baldwin was able to achieve a more detailed character development of Sonny by giving a view into his childhood life. After considering the death of both his parents at a young age and the city where he grew up it was no shock for me that Sonny was involved in heroin. With the background information Baldwin included I felt that I was able to understand Sonny as person more as well as his family. The way the plot was written also helped to aid to the theme of soul searching that Sonny went through. While no longer depending on heroin Sonny was in a way a completely new person that he and his brother were not accustomed to. However one similarity between heroin addicted Sonny and drug free Sonny was his passion for music. When the narrator goes to see his brother perform he begins to build a connection with the music as the memories from his childhood begin to flood back and one can even inference that he begins to understand Sonny’s love for music. On page 62 the narrator 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. He has to make it do what he wants. And a piano is just a piano.” After reading this quote I thought about how the instrument represents life. Everyone is given a life and a life is a life but you have to choose what to do with it. Do you want to make music or do you want to waste it away. I think this quote perfectly tied in the struggles Sonny deals with in his life and how music is his antidote.
ReplyDeleteIn Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, the plot was very unconventional but still effective. Throughout the story, I learned more about Sonny’s current situation as the narrator had flashbacks. When the piece started, I was unsure if Sonny had died or just gotten arrested. The beginning where the narrator was reading the story in the paper he “read it, and couldn't believe it, and read it again”. Baldwin creates this element of mystery to keep the reader on their toes and wonder what happened. Throughout the story, as Sonny’s story was told, there was an obvious message in the story, but I found it difficult to identify the climax of the story. Since Sonny’s life seems endlessly challenging, I couldn’t Identify one event that marked the highest or lowest point in the story. I debated between the climax being when Sonny was arrested or when he ran away from Isabel’s family home. However, due to the unconventional plot structure in the piece, the story still has an obvious form even without the climax. After the flashbacks had seized and the action had started to fall was my personal favorite part of the work. The unsettling feeling of Sonny and his brother not talking was gone, and in the club I could see that Sonny had actually been doing something productive and creative with his life. It was very comforting to see that all of his friends “gathered around Sonny and Sonny played. Every now and again one of the seemed to say, amen”. This provided me with reassurance and the message that despite his chaotic life he still had a chance to get what he wanted out of his life.
ReplyDeleteThe structure of the plot in “Sonny’s Blues” is a little unusual. Almost the entire story is rising action, describing how the relationship between the brothers progressed, through flashbacks and monologues by the narrator. This all builds to the turning point, which occurs in the very last paragraphs of the story. The scene, back in the present, is where the narrator seems to finally understand his brother as he watches him exert himself in his music, not only listening to his music, but seeing it, feeling it, and living in it. The long rising action leads the reader to understand the true weight and importance of the final scene of the story. The relationship between the brothers was tense, but both of them understood the importance of their connection. The many emotional flashbacks give the reader increased empathy for the characters, and provide insight as to what creates the tension in their relationship. As we watch the brothers struggle with their own problems, with each others’ problems, and with the problem of their own relationship, the reader feels personally involved in their story. Because of this long rising action, the final scene feels much more important to the reader. As I finished the story, I felt a sense of relief. As Sonny raised his glass to the narrator, the narrator seems to be seeing his brother as he truly is for the first time. After much speculation about how Sonny lived his life, and much confusion about his passion, the narrator finally understands. He can see the weight of Sonny’s struggles on him, and he believes that his brother wants to heal. Both brothers can see that they are ready to accept a new life with each other playing a prominent role.
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ReplyDeleteBehind the story of Sonny in Sonny’s Blues lies a more subtle tale: the story of blues itself. Traditionally, blues music has been known as a slower and more downbeat brand of music that fit better on your worst days than your best. But underneath those lyrics and tunes lay the genuine emotion and pain of those who sing them. Many of these songs are written and sang by boys whose lives were shaped by “two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness.” (42) By continuously reminding readers of how little hope these boys have for the future, Baldwin is able to effectively juxtapose Sonny’s life with his love for music and lead readers to realize the potential in Sonny’s songs if he channels his distinctive emotions and experiences. Throughout this time in the novel, however, Sonny is also struggling with drug addiction and becomes separated from the narrator because of it. Fittingly, Baldwin chooses to reintroduce Sonny back into the narrator's life “the very day that little Grace, [the narrator’s daughter], was buried.” (56) By timing Sonny’s reemergence in the way he did, Baldwin goes beyond simply associating Sonny with that pain- he also leaves the feeling the Sonny will help narrator recover from that pain. As expected, Sonny makes this impact through his music when he invites the narrator to a club where he is performing. That night, Sonny plays a beautiful blues song- as the narrator comments, “it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl and felt Isabel’s tears again, and I felt my own begin to rise.” (64) That moment is what Baldwin is hinting at as the identity of blues: truthful songwriting that relates with the pain and suffering within countless hearts and, more importantly, aids in the process of healing.
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool-- I never would have noticed this connection!
DeleteAlthough both brothers were brought up in the same environment, the Narrator in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” is in many ways the opposite of his brother, Sonny. The reader comes to understand that, in the narrative, he attempts to escape the negative environment of Harlem through the education system and becoming a teacher. But this struggle to escape is proven futile , as he still resides in the projects of Harlem and is still surrounded by feelings of hopelessness and despair when the story begins. It is evident that, early on in the short story, the Narrator alienates his brother, Sonny, and has adapted emotionally in a way that prevents him to succumbing to his emotions. In retrospect, the Narrator has taught himself to cope with his hardships appropriately and even apathetically. This attitude makes him seem as if he is detached and monotonous, evident in his lackluster reaction to his own daughter’s death from polio. And yet, at times he shows emotional confusion, such as when he subtly alternates between anger and sympathy towards Sonny’s friend. “Look. Don’t tell me your sad story, if it was up to me, I’d give you one.” Then I felt guilty- guilty, probably, for never having supposed that the poor bastard had a story of his own, much less a sad one” (43).
ReplyDeleteAs the story progresses, and the Narrator begins to connect emotionally with Sonny, the emotional confusion he experiences gradually develops into total empathy, evident in the way he reacts when he sees Sonny perform at the jazz club. “It was very beautiful because it wasn’t hurried and it was no longer lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting” (63). The narrator’s emotional development throughout the novel acts as a catalyst for the narrative. This gradual, yet tremendous emotional shift is what brings the Narrator and Sonny to an understanding, and it eventually allows the Narrator to recognize his brother’s and his own hardships.
Like Aiden said, it's very 'In the Lake of the Woods'-esque in terms of the structure but more elegant and with a better flow. You're dropped right into the conflict within the first few lines, something that doesn't happen too often, and only get some background through the flashbacks that follow. The narrator never formally introduces himself and says, 'this is who I am.' Instead, he tells the story of his brother's issues and his family background to expose himself as the person he is. His successes act as a reason for him to be content and proud of his life but he also feels stuck because of Sonny, his family difficulties, and the environment he's in. He acknowledges the darkness and danger of Harlem, and he painfully witnesses his brother's place in the middle of it. When his daughter dies and he reaches out to his brother he finally takes that step toward sort of inviting all the darkness he's knowledgeable of. He's been keeping everything at arm's length, all the suffering and darkness that looms over the entire community, but by reaching out to Sonny, bringing him back into his life, he's giving himself the ability to have that full range of emotion like his brother has through his music.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the story not only because of the intriguing style of writing but also because the narrator's relationship with himself and Sonny was something I haven't read about in a long time so some emotions resurfaced. Ones that I hadn't felt while reading a depressing piece in a while.
I also totally see the connection with Lake of the Woods--it also reminded me a lot of Only Goodness, since both were essentially about families dealing with their loved ones substance abuse...
DeleteIn Sonny’s Blues, one of the things I found interesting, that I know others have commented on as well, is the unique and intricate plot structure. At first the story was a little confusing; like others I thought at first that Sonny was a student, then maybe a friend, before realizing that Sonny was the narrator’s brother. Overall I felt as if the story was starting from a very general and relatable perspective: someone picking up a newspaper article and seeing someone who you may know. From there, it seemed like the story was zooming in. This first happened when we realized that Sonny was the narrator’s brother, and then again when details about Sonny’s arrest surface, again with the flashback to the narrator talking about their childhood and the deaths of their parents, and (again!) when Sonny’s passion for music is truly introduced. To me, it was clear that Sonny was using music as an outlet for all of the pain and hurt that he had been dealing with his whole life, and that reminded me of all of those famous artists in the 27 Club, like Kurt Cobain, who were also talented and they used their suffering as their guide to their music, but eventually would die anyways. This made me wonder about what Sonny’s life will be like in the future. He told his brother that his addiction “can come again”, and I wonder if Sonny knows that his life will inevitably come to an end in a short period of time. I feel like that would make sense, but honestly we just don’t know for sure. I also thought it was interesting how we never learn the narrator’s name. Even when Sonny addresses the letter to him, he addresses his brother as “brother”. I feel like that speaks on the religious aspects mentioned throughout the story, and the idea that we’re all God’s children, and from the narrator’s perspective and the use of “sister” as well, maybe the use of the narrator really only being referred to as “brother” is to show that even though he didn’t feel like he knows Sonny very well, Sonny still thought of him in a deeper and more existential sense. Finally, I really appreciated the closure given in this story. In the beginning the narrator says that Isabel’s family only put up with Sonny’s behavior and constant piano playing for the sake of the narrator. Of course her family was extremely nice to him and welcoming, but at the same time they weren’t his people. But by the end of the story, Sonny seemed to have finally found his tribe and his real family; people who understood him and knew he was capable of great things but didn’t make him feel any less for not being absolutely perfect.
ReplyDelete-Katie Wolfendale (sorry it didn't say my name on top!!)
DeleteThe setting of this story was clearly a large factor behind the characters' motivations and struggles. The background of Harlem was as multifaceted as the rest of the story, as Harlem is both an impoverished area but also one with a rich history regarding the arts. Sonny is like Harlem in this way, he is both an addict dealing with trauma and a talented musician with a passion for his craft. Sonny has a complicated relationship with Harlem, he leaves his home for the Village, which symbolizes the downfall of his relationship with his brother. The concept of escaping one's life is a main theme throughout the story, whether it be with drugs, emotional ambivalence from your past, or physically running away. Harlem is a physical representation of the pain that the characters want to get away from, it stands in for their rough childhoods and personal trauma. Sonny uses running away from Harlem to the Village as a way to practice his music, another form of escape, but also the "reason [he] wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from the drugs." (60). The Narrator becomes a school teacher to try and distance himself away from Harlem as well, but he still ends up there with his family, just as Sonny ends up their again after he leaves jail. To me this shows that even if you try to run away and forget where you came from it will always be with you. Instead of running from your past you should embrace it and work through it, as Sonny does when playing the piano again after so many years.
ReplyDeleteI really like this connection!
DeleteAs most people have mentioned, the plot line “Sonny’s Blues” is not chronological, and instead travels between the present day and the narrator’s flashbacks. The story opens without an introduction to the characters, and this adds a level of mystery, as you want to find out who the narrator is, who Sonny is, what happened to Sonny, what the narrator’s relation to Sonny is. When I found out that Sonny was the narrator’s brother, I wanted to know what caused the distance between the two, and James Baldwin took his time revealing their history, and the evolution of their relationship was slowly revealed through a series of flashbacks. I thought that the use a flashbacks in this story was particularly interesting because they, as Aiden said, were often brought by words or strong emotions that reminded the narrator of a time in his past, like when he was “dying to hear him tell [the narrator] he was safe”, and then there was a flashback to when his mother asked him to keep his brother safe. Throughout the flashbacks, you see that the narrator was never a particularly good brother to Sonny. As Sonny said, “you never hear anything I say”. By trying the keep Sonny on the right path, and away from trouble, he in fact pushed his brother away, and was unable to help him when he fell into a heroin addiction. I loved seeing the narrator finally become a good brother to Sonny, and I thought that the turning point in their relationship was when he finally listened to Sonny play the piano, and really heard him for the first time. The flashbacks were heartbreaking to see Sonny drift farther and farther apart, and it made me wish the narrator had tried to form a closer bond with his brother, but the ending gave me hope that there could be a relationship, and maybe one that could prevent Sonny from using heroin again.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely hard to pinpoint one specific reason why one becomes addicted to drugs. Often times the addicts themselves want to get clean but find that it is physically impossible for them to do so. At first, the narrator is rather naive, and does not understand why Sonny, as well as so many other children from his childhood, began using hard drugs like heroin. He is convinced that Sonny “must want to die”, rather than considering that there may be other reasons behind his addiction. The narrator mistakenly sees Sonny as a junky that has no purpose in life. This is infuriating because for someone to be so insensitive to a sibling, even if they are somewhat estranged, is shameful and pathetic. The narrator fails to realize that Sonny, despite being an addict, still has emotions and a need to be cared for and loved by other human beings. Luckily, the narrator has a change of heart and begins to write Sonny after he receives a letter. This letter is the turning point where the narrator realizes that Sonny may actually be more than a hobo with a needle. The narrator slowly comprehends the magnitude of Sonny’s internal struggle and feels guilty after having ignored Sonny for so many years. This narrator should truly be ashamed of himself for being so ignorant to what Sonny was going through. If he had only given Sonny a chance earlier in his life, maybe he could have saved him from so much unnecessary suffering. Hopefully the narrator will realize that treating Sonny’s addiction isn't all about finding his drugs and throwing them away. Treating his addiction involves emotional, mental, and physical treatment to get to the root of the problem. The narrator may even find that sonny is untreatable, but that does not warrant abandonment.
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ReplyDeleteSonny’s Blues was really all about the history behind the main characters and their family. Without the flashbacks, the reader could for an entirely different opinion on the narrator and his relationship with his brother. The fact that he knows about the unfortunate fate of his uncle and Sonny does not really explains the actions of both characters and provides integral background in the family life that these two grew up in. When their mother is gone, it’s only natural that we can see the older sibling taking on a parent-like role and the younger sibling being very resistant. However, the story about their uncle enforces this role upon the narrator, and incidentally enforces the opposite role on Sonny. In addition, as a few other people mentioned, the narrator’s relationship with Sonny was a bit unclear at the beginning, so these flashbacks gave us the details we may have missed at the start. I also really enjoyed the contradictions included in this story. First of all, the title is Sonny’s Blues. Sonny almost sounds like a children’s book character who is having a bad day. This sort of image continued through the beginning of the story, as the narrator described his brother as “Wild but not crazy” and “he hadn’t ever turned hard or evil or disrespectful”(42). This paints a picture of a teenager who just made a bad decision, almost downplaying the magnitude of the heroin despite the narrator’s shock. Also, I found a lot of meaning in Sonny wanting to join the army, just like his brother. As a reader these two characters seemed extremely different and yet Sonny wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Obviously, they had different reasons for wanting to enlist, but the end result was the same. As a few other people mentioned, I saw a strong connection to the siblings in Only Goodness, with that fragile relationship. For me, though, Sudha and Rahul grew farther apart throughout their story while Sonny and the narrator grew closer from the beginning to the end of theirs. Though Sonny’s Blues wasn’t exactly in chronological order, the author’s decision to have their relationship build throughout the plot was very effective.
One of the most important moments of “Sonny’s Blues” comes when the narrator chooses to write to his brother. On a first reading, the decision seems somewhat odd: after not contacting Sonny for an indeterminately “long time” after Sonny’s arrest, the narrator suddenly makes the decision to enter into correspondence with him (45). His motivation is introduced to the reader by a throwaway line in the middle of the sentence describing Sonny’s letter: the narrator writes to Sonny “just after [his] little girl died” (45). Because Baldwin puts this turning point so early on in the story, before any significant exposition of his relationship with family, protection, and Sonny, the logic and connection between his actions is unclear. But only later does Baldwin reveal to the reader the true cause of the narrator’s letter: his conversation with their mother about his responsibility to not “let [Sonny] fall” (50). Their mother has, on her deathbed, essentially passed onto the narrator the responsibility of protecting and parenting Sonny. But it is only when the narrator fails to protect his daughter, letting her die, that he realizes his promise to his mother. Baldwin, however, chooses to insert this episode after the seemingly inexplicable decision of the narrator to contact his brother. By placing the justification after the action and reversing the chronology, Baldwin creates an important question that keeps the reader going until it is answered: why does the narrator want to see Sonny?
ReplyDelete"Sonny's Blues" is a precedent for the disjointed style of writing to which Tim O'Brien is accredited for. This abstract way of crafting passages can amplify the meaning of the journey that the reader is embarking on or can entrap them within a convoluted pattern that is up for vast interpretation. The solitude to which these brothers have been adept at, eventually subjugates them into creating a greater separation between the two. Sonny, as a child especially, had been known as a recluse of sorts which becomes clearly poignant when Isabel and her family, during their fitd of rage over his absence from school, "had stripped him naked and were spitting on that nakedness" (55). Sonny is then led to assume, "that music, which had been life or death to him, had been torture for them and that they had endured it, not at all for his sake, but only for mine" (55). This exhausted narrative where a person has there beliefs trifled upon and are faced with such displacement that they are made to run off, colludes with the themes of rejection and redemption. These themes, within novels at least, symbolize the Yin and the yang to where the blend between the characters fragilely accentuates the pain that must be garnered in order to feel alive in the world.
ReplyDeleteIn James Baldwin’s, “Sonny’s Blues,” the author introduces Sonny’s battle with addiction indicating that it is going to be a recurring issue in the story. He doesn’t use a conventional plot structure and starts with the arrest of Sonny. Learning about his younger brother’s drug troubles, the narrator’s past resurges triggering a series of flashbacks and backs and forths between the past and the present. These continuous connections to the past help the reader have a deeper insight on the circumstances that led to the current situation. The environment in which he was raised played a key role in the man he became. Sonny always felt haunted by the ingrained darkness that Harlem seemed to carry, making him feel ill-fated and longing to leave before he gets trapped in like many others did. He turned to music to express his pain and suffering. Music has a major role in the story’s plot by being the root of many arguments that the narrator had with his brother. The majority of them were triggered by the narrator’s disapproval of Sonny’s career as a musician and his drug abuse. Sonny, nevertheless, felt that he had no escape other than music that allows him to let out his anger and desire to be free. Music was his chance of peace. It shut off the noises of chaos in his mind and in Harlem. When he is playing the piano, the only thing he is thinking of are his fingertips and the keyboard. Music helped him get through hardships and have control over his sufferings, “Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes—when it’s in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. And distant. And—and sure….It makes you feel—in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have that feeling” (58). The events continue to build up till the plot reaches its climax when the narrator, at last, agrees to listen to his brother’s music. Watching Sonny perform was a turning point in the plot because the narrator started understanding the pain and passions that fueled his brother’s music. The sufferings and hopes flowing at the same time out of Sonny’s instrument reminded him of his own pains, a pain that is felt universally by all the members of the community. He described the moment saying, “I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father’s brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again...” (63-63). Finally, the dynamics of the relation between the two brothers changed and the story ends on a happy note.
ReplyDeleteI find that the most interesting aspect of "Sonny's Blues" is the way in which James Baldwin establishes the narrator's anxious emotions and how he grows from them. This type of characterization is most evident in the first few pages of the short story, and effectively sets up the apprehensive tone that the narrator conducts himself with for the rest of the text. By apprehension, I mean how lovingly but awkwardly the narrator acts around his little brother Sonny upon meeting him for the first time in quite a while. The narrator is clearly uncomfortable in a way, even to the extent where it feels like his "guts [are] going to come spilling out" (41). From the point on in the story where he and Sonny first meet, the reader will then be keenly aware of the interactions that occur between the two brothers, which gradually turn from standoffish to a sense of mutual understanding and acceptance. What makes the evolution of their relationship so beautiful is how almost anyone can relate to it, to——as Casablanca puts it——the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Likewise, people will be able to put themselves in the shoes of either the narrator or Sonny, depending on who was in the wrong, and will likely feel the bond between the two characters as the reader once felt with another.
ReplyDeleteSonny's blues is about the lives of two brothers from Harlem. The story focuses on the Narrator and his inability to reach his younger, more tenacious sibling. In this struggle he learns that neither of them have truly left Harlem, as the city had taken apart of them that they had to gnaw off like an animal in a bear trap. It should be noted then that their inability to rise out of poverty is a symptom of a larger systematic issue which allows the darkness to persist. The light can never shine through unto the inhabitants of Harlem because there is no light. This much was acknowledged by the Father of the narrator who said that the kids wouldn't have a safe place to grow up because there was never one to begin with. Not for them. We can contrast the carelessness of the white boys with the ever vigilant struggle to survive which truly defines life in Harlem. This struggle splits families and reinforces negative behaviors by providing an easy escape. Harlem could be considered the perfect human model of "Rat Park", an experiment which posited that drug abuse was caused by environmental factors primarily, and the physical addiction as a secondary result of the original abuse. I believe that it is the duty of mankind as a whole to extend a helping hand to those who suffer from these illnesses. Addiction is the modern day equivalent to the Black Death. Its victims should be treated as human beings, and I believe that Sonny is that character which we should take inspiration. Sonny is a human being with a soul, with feelings that are undeniable in their validity and to turn a blind eye to his disease is tantamount to allowing him to die. It is our moral duty to look out for those who can’t help themselves and I hope my classmates learned as much from this selection as I have.
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