Cultural Identity In Sonny's Blues

People will inevitably encounter various of frustrations in their lives, some will make them face the future negatively, but others will let them grow up. The story Sonny’s blues describes the growth experience of a pair of black brothers, Sonny and his brother, who struggled in the white-led society. The setbacks they experienced led them to change mentally, and Sonny’s brother changed more dramatically through the whole story in terms of his recognition of his culture as well as identity. Overall, his transformation reflected the importance of insisting on their cultural identity.
In the beginning of the story, Sonny’s brother was a person who did not understand his culture and deviated from his own cultural identity. During the conversation …show more content…
Nowadays, with the development of world integration, people are able to receive more information from foreign cultures. But at the same time, they are more easily to be influenced and assimilated by those cultures, which will lead them to deviate their own cultural identities. Once a person give up his own identity of his culture, it is difficult for him to be accepted in any society. In the story Sonny’s Blues, the main character Sonny’s brother is a typical example of it. He did not understand his cultural traditional music, and his incomplete comprehension on that leads to his disrespectful attitude towards jazz music, which showed he already deviated from his own cultural identity. So, he is hardly to integrate into his own cultural community, or to communicate with people who have dreams to revive their national culture, such as Sonny. However, he finds that it is hard for him to live in the white society as well. Through his uncle’s story, he understands that whether he gives up his cultural identity or not, the white society will always treat him as an African-American due to his skin color. Even though he deviates from his cultural identity, it is still possible for him to be treated unfairly, like other African-Americans. Therefore, he understood how hard he will live in the white-led community, as well as other compatriots, which lead him to concern about his concern about his culture, and let him understand his culture and integrate into his cultural community at the end. Consequently, Sonny’s brother’s transformation shows that people who insist on their cultural identities could be accepted by their community, otherwise, they are hardly to integrate into any