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Social Customs in "Sonny's Blues"
James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" indicates how different social customs can be for different races, and Baldwin illustrates this by creating two vastly different brothers who exist in two different worlds. The narrator, Sonny's brother, has assimilated into white society as much as possible so he can better himself and become successful. He is a high school teacher, while is brother Sonny is a musician and heroin addict. He does not understand Sonny's life any more than Sonny understands his brother's life. Sonny cannot assimilate into the white culture, and turns to jazz music as a way to escape and survive. His brother never approves of him, which shows just how far apart they are and how social customs are so very different in the two different worlds they travel.
The two brothers also share the common social custom of hoping to escape their past. They lived in poverty like so many black families, and they want to leave the old neighborhood behind and make better lives. The narrator does this by basically becoming "white." He is educated, is a teacher, and does not socialize with the people he grew up with, including his brother. He lives a middle-class life and mildly disapproves of everything else. He seems white in his attitudes and his ideas. Sonny, on the other hand, has retained his black culture and awareness even as he escapes the poverty of their early life. He is truly happy when he plays his music, and that finally brings the two brothers closer together. The novel shows that even people of the same race can have two vastly different social cultures, and that how Americans view each other is based on culture, but also on assimilation. They approve more of the narrator because he has become "white" and made his life into the typical middle-class existence, while they disapprove of Sonny who seems dangerous because he has not assimilated. IT shows how different cultures still exist in the country, even though the nation is based on freedom and "equality" for everyone.
James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" Moments of realization are one of the themes of the short story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. The narrator of this story is able to learn about his brother as well as himself through his relationship with Sonny. Baldwin allows the narrator to gain an understanding of his brother as he reflects on the differences between them. This paper will examine how the narrator comes to recognize
James Baldwin Wrote Freedom, Justice, Democracy The Merriam Webster dictionary defines freedom as "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action." Justice is the "conformity to truth, fact, or reason." Democracy is a government where the "supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held elections." I understand the literal context of these words
James Baldwin grew up a neglected child. He was a black man in a white man's world -- gay man who was trying to make his mark in the world of literature. "You write of your experiences," James Baldwin once said. James Baldwin wrote to overcome the barriers in his life. To better understand the thematic importance of Paris and the room in this book, we need to begin with the
With music, Sonny can express his pain without tripping up on words. Music becomes a flow of pure emotion, therefore leaving him satisfied with his mode of transmitting his emotions to an audience. Therefore, Sonny is allowed the chance at redemption for his past sins as an addict and criminal, (Tackach 113). He once was lost, but returns to his family to bring substance back into his brother's life.
Effects: Helps the reader better understand the reality of the situation, underlines the fact that despite the fact that fictional techniques are being used, this is 'real' history. Question 3 In "Son," the conflict between the children and parents is generational in nature. Every succeeding paragraph of the short story takes the reader farther and farther back in time, detailing the history of the previous generation. The sons feel as if their
James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues applying historcal criticism method. To begin developing thesis, helpful review sections chapter Critical Theory Today list "Some questions…critics literary texts. James Baldwin's 1957 short story "Sonny's Blues" deals with elements in the life of an African-American family during several moments in their lives as they try to cope with the difficult conditions at the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century. Baldwin concentrates on