The essay is about 2 different fictional stories by James Baldwin and how they relate to growing up in the depression era as an African-American family in Harlem. The first story, Sonny’s Blues explores the views of two black brothers and the suffering they experienced as individuals while living in a black community in Harlem during 1930. This story shows how the two brothers both try to relate to each other’s lives even though they are completely two different people. The unnamed Narrator who is also the oldest brother tries to understand his drug addicted but yet talented brother Sonny. Sonny finds difficulty in coping with the mediocrity of a lifestyle path his older brother (the unknown narrator) has taken. Sonny wants to gain acceptance
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Through his music, he expresses his turmoil in life through playing the blues. In both these stories, Baldwin shows how discrimination, drug addiction, imprisonment, death, and poverty influences them to make decisions on what paths they take in life, and how they all deal with it in different ways. These stories also show the harsh struggles of being an African American during depression area of 1930. This story starts off with an unknown narrator and his thoughts of how he sees his younger brother growing up in an ever so challenging black community. The first part, the older brother finds out in the most unipersonal way by walking to the subway and reading the newspaper about his younger brother’s arrest for dealing heroin. The unknown narrator had his suspicions about how his younger brother Sonny was spending his life, the narrator justified them with rationalizations about what kind of person Sonny really was. At that point, the narrator reveals his blue collared path that …show more content…
who was born out of wedlock. Roy 's father resents him and his mother Elizabeth for having him in sin. Because their father is a hypocritical preacher that from the abuse he puts the fear of god into this family. CHANGE THIS points out Since on the whole these Negroes accept the identity and the God given to them by white society, they feel that they must prove themselves to be equal to whites in these respects. And this is, of course, what Baldwin seems to resent so much., punctuality, social manners, parental respect, observance of the law, thrift and so on in one group as the
Through his music, he expresses his turmoil in life through playing the blues. In both these stories, Baldwin shows how discrimination, drug addiction, imprisonment, death, and poverty influences them to make decisions on what paths they take in life, and how they all deal with it in different ways. These stories also show the harsh struggles of being an African American during depression area of 1930. This story starts off with an unknown narrator and his thoughts of how he sees his younger brother growing up in an ever so challenging black community. The first part, the older brother finds out in the most unipersonal way by walking to the subway and reading the newspaper about his younger brother’s arrest for dealing heroin. The unknown narrator had his suspicions about how his younger brother Sonny was spending his life, the narrator justified them with rationalizations about what kind of person Sonny really was. At that point, the narrator reveals his blue collared path that …show more content…
who was born out of wedlock. Roy 's father resents him and his mother Elizabeth for having him in sin. Because their father is a hypocritical preacher that from the abuse he puts the fear of god into this family. CHANGE THIS points out Since on the whole these Negroes accept the identity and the God given to them by white society, they feel that they must prove themselves to be equal to whites in these respects. And this is, of course, what Baldwin seems to resent so much., punctuality, social manners, parental respect, observance of the law, thrift and so on in one group as the