What ignites the feeling of
shock in a modern world person? Every morning, on the way to get coffee,
America’s privileged walk past pregnant women, begging for change, and don’t so
much as offer a smile. During the day we drive by wreckage of road side
accidents and never reach to turn down the music. By midnight wild amounts of
people are listening to sounds of gun shots and tropic storms as they drift
asleep. But, what if that beggar was a friend, that victim a family member? A
particular work of fiction titled “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin opens with the
narrator receiving news that his younger brother has been arrested during a bad
drug bust. Among many other literary techniques, Baldwin uses allegorical
language to reinforce the tone and theme of his short story.
Near the middle of “Sonny’s
Blues” the unnamed big brother reminisces on all the family gatherings that
took place in his childhood home. The first few
sentences concerning his memory are written in a playful tone, "...the old folks were talking after the big Sunday dinner"(Baldwin, 83) that quickly switches
to a somber one as he begins to describe his family’s oblivion to the fading of
the afternoon sun. Light is commonly used to symbolize good and here stands for
the loss of what is good, such as the purity of his younger brother. The adults
in the room quiet themselves and retract from conversation all together, trying
not to admit to the darkening sky outside. The act of ignoring the circumstance stands for their positions in life. Each knows the hardships
of crime or poverty or racial discrimination, but feels that these things
cannot be avoided or changed. With animal-like instinct the children, scattered throughout, fear the sudden shift in environment as one boy "...hopes that the hand which strokes his forehead will never stop"(Baldwin, 83). What the young ones sense is a very
real fear of being alone, without guidance, tossed into an unpredictable,
dangerous world. (Baldwin 83-84)
With one recollection, the speaker has foreshadowed the story's end and revealed its entire nature. In a broad sense mankind all spawn from a central point. Every person is born small and defenseless. Though our upbringings can push us in different directions, there is a time when a boy becomes a man, or a girl becomes a woman, and can choose for his or her self what direction to follow. This moment is symbolized by the setting of the sun in "Sonny's Blues". Inevitably people choose different paths and grow to handle circumstances with separately molded outlooks, as the narrator grew to become a teacher and his brother a musician addicted to heroin.
Works Cited:
With one recollection, the speaker has foreshadowed the story's end and revealed its entire nature. In a broad sense mankind all spawn from a central point. Every person is born small and defenseless. Though our upbringings can push us in different directions, there is a time when a boy becomes a man, or a girl becomes a woman, and can choose for his or her self what direction to follow. This moment is symbolized by the setting of the sun in "Sonny's Blues". Inevitably people choose different paths and grow to handle circumstances with separately molded outlooks, as the narrator grew to become a teacher and his brother a musician addicted to heroin.
Works Cited:
1. Baldwin, James (2011). Sonny's Blues. In B. Alison, & K.
J. Mays, The Norton Introduction to Literature 10th Edition (pp. 75-101).
New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
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