Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
This is the start of Sonny's brother's awareness of his cultural narrative, but it is a slow process that leaves him unable to comprehend Sonny's musical aspirations (699). Even what he thinks of as music doesn't line up with Sonny's more in-tune tastes; Sonny refers to Armstrong -- whom his brother thinks of as representing jazz/blues -- as "that old-time, down-home crap," with certain implications of racial turncoating (699).
Eventually, Sonny's brother takes Sonny's victory -- his return to music and his turning away from heroin -- as a triumph for himself and possibly, symbolically, a victory for the blacks of Harlem (701). This triumph is uncertain, however, just as the new musical forms solidifying into bebop and jazz were uncertain (701). The musical choice for Sonny's return to the piano also has implications on this; it is a new form of jazz/blues, sung by an artist similar in stature...
The character of Creole, the famed musician who invites Sonny to play, also coaxes his fellow musicians, including -- and perhaps especially -- Sonny, to explore the history of their music with new forms (703). In this way, the black cultural narrative can be adapted to overcome past circumstances and current limitations, remapping "the network of cultural narratives, of which the revival songs comprise only a small part" (703).
There is an agency in Sonny's music that does not and cannot exist in traditional blues (704). This agency is provided by Sonny's music to himself, his brother, and the community at large (704). Baldwin, in this story, attempts to alter the cultural narrative that creates self-fulfilling beliefs in failure (704).
Works Cited
Sherar, Tracey. "Sonny's…
Works Cited
Sherar, Tracey. "Sonny's Bebop: Baldwin's 'Blues Text' as Intracultural Critique." 1999.
African-American Review. pp 691-704.
James Baldwin and "Sonny's Blues" African-American James Baldwin (1924-1987) was born in Harlem in New York City, the son of a Pentecostal minister (Kennedy and Gioia 53). Much of Baldwin's work, which includes three novels and numerous short stories and essays, describes conflicts, dilemmas, obstacles, and choices faced by African-Americans in modern-day white-dominated society, and ways, good and bad, that African-Americans either surmount or fall victim to racial prejudices, stereotypes, temptations
Sonny's Blues While the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must always be heard," writes James Baldwin in his short story, Sonny's Blues. "There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." This might be called the theme of Sonny's Blues, and it comes at the end of a long
Sonny's Blues": Two brothers, two parallel lives James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" is contingent upon a comparison of the lives of two men, Sonny's brother and Sonny himself. Sonny's brother is a stable family man with a wife and two children, a respected schoolteacher. Sonny is a heroin addict and jazz musician. On a schematic level, they represent two sides of the African-American experience, as chronicled by Baldwin during
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.
ariticle a full sentence. A. summarize critic's interpretation work 3-5 senteces. B. State thesis: sentences, critic's strong arguments weak arguments? learn part critic's strong arguments? A. Tracey Sherard's "Sonny's Bebop: Baldwin's "Blues Text" as Intracultural Critique" Tracey Sherard's article "Sonny's Bebop: Baldwin's "Blues Text" as Intracultural Critique" was published in 1998 in the "African-American Review." Sherard intended to have her readers understand more regarding Baldwin's interest in writing the short story.