Gilded Six Bits and Sonny\'s

¶ … Gilded Six Bits" and "Sonny's Blues": The value of money

Like many college students today, I have been thinking a great deal about money. How important should money be when evaluating the worth of something or someone? Zora Neale Hurston's short story "The Gilded Six Bits" is a dire warning about overvaluing money. In the story, a happy couple's life is nearly destroyed because the wife sleeps with a rich man named Otis D. Slemmons, in the false hope that the money he gives her will give the couple more financial security. In "Sonny's Blues," the poverty and desperation of the inner city means that the title character has no way to escape the life circumstances that make it almost impossible for him to flourish and grow. Read together, both illustrate the thesis that money cannot be ignored in terms of its importance, but nor can it dominate one's life to the point that a person loses his or her values. I will use the themes of both of these stories to guide me in the choice of my future occupation, and in my life.

Symbolism plays an important role in both short stories. In "The Gilded Six Bits," the flashy dress of Slemmons is what attracts the eye of Missie May and Joe: "He's got a five-dollar gold piece for a stickpin and he got a ten-dollar gold piece on his watch chain and his mouf is jes' crammed full of gold teeths" (Huston 4). When the story begins, the husband and wife are happy, but both of them covet the wealth of Slemmons, despite the fact that Missie is the best-dressed woman at the ice cream store where the two of them go once a week to parade their finery before the town. However, when Joe finds Missie with Slemmons, he is devastated. He punches Slemmons and chases the man away, but for a long time there is no humorous, light-hearted banter between the couple. Only after it is revealed that Missie is expecting a child does Joe begin to soften and forgive her and things return to normal. (the reason that Missie was unfaithful, Hurston implies, is that she wished to have a bit more money to support the coming child).

What makes the foolish decision of Missie even sadder is that Slemmons is a liar. The meaning of the title of the story "The Gilded Six Bits" derives the fact that Slemmons' gold is actually gilded. "It was a gilded half dollar. Then she knew why Slemmons had forbidden anyone to touch his gold. He trusted village eyes at a distance not to recognize his stickpin as a gilded quarter, and his watch charm as a four-bit piece" (Hurston 33). Money destroys and is the root of all evil, Hurston implies. Far from bringing people together, the coveting of money almost drives two happy people apart.

However, it is important to note that, while not rich, Missie and Joe are not impoverished. They have enough money to eat reasonably well, to go out for ice cream, and for small luxuries. Hurston is careful to note that the couple has already saved some money to support the coming child. To live in absolute poverty, in the midst of despair, is a very different matter. That is the life situation of the title character of "Sonny's Blues." The title of the story, which refers to 'blues music', underlines how the blues are a powerful symbol of hope and despair. Sonny's love of music, is what still remains 'good' about him, what still gives him hope, even when he is an addict. "I want to play with-jazz musicians….I want to play jazz," says Sonny. The story is also about 'the blues' -- in the sense that the blues embody the dark side of music, a cry of despair, and the drug addiction that destroyed the life of Bird, Charlie Parker and Sonny's idol (Baldwin 103). The underlying theme of "Sonny's Blues" is very tragic, namely the siren song of the lust for heroin.