In family relationships, economics, society, and culture can have a major impact on love, happiness and understanding within a family. In “Sonny’s Blues” two brothers relationship is in turmoil, after growing up in a bad neighborhood of Harlem. In this short story “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin’s, Baldwin uses the narrator point of view, setting and flashback to capture the person vs. society conflict between the two brothers to demonstrate how important it is to respect and listen to the choices people make in their life.
Baldwin chooses Sonny’s older brother to tell the story from the narrator’s point of view to capture true essence of the characters. The narrator tells the story after he found out that his brother was arrested …show more content…
Sonny invited the narrator to go someplace with him and the narrator agrees. Sonny is going to be playing his jazz music with his old friends. However, the narrator always thought that the music life style was bad for Sonny and felt the he could have done better. “He gave me a sidelong. “If you can stand it.” “I’ll try,” I said” (112). The two brother stood in the living room and had a moment before they went out for the night. That’s when Sonny started to open up and talk to the narrator and the narrator stopped a listen. “The fact that I had held silence—so long!—when he had needed human speech to help him” (113). Finally, the brothers are at the nightclub and Sonny is playing the piano in the band with his musician friends. . As a result, the narrator is able to witness how talented Sonny music is and how it affected the audience and himself. As Sonny played the people of in the nightclub gathered around Sonny and was touch by the melody. As the narrator listens to Sonny play his music he started to understand Sonny “I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen” (117). The message Baldwin was conveying came in the end of the story at the nightclub.
Baldwin, demonstrated how important it is to respect, and listen to people choices through the narrator point of view, setting and flashback. The narrator himself as one of the main character bring the readers more in-depth into the story. Without the setting and the flashback would have had a difficulty understanding the culture and struggles with society. Yet, it was at the end of the story Baldwin became very
Baldwin chooses Sonny’s older brother to tell the story from the narrator’s point of view to capture true essence of the characters. The narrator tells the story after he found out that his brother was arrested …show more content…
Sonny invited the narrator to go someplace with him and the narrator agrees. Sonny is going to be playing his jazz music with his old friends. However, the narrator always thought that the music life style was bad for Sonny and felt the he could have done better. “He gave me a sidelong. “If you can stand it.” “I’ll try,” I said” (112). The two brother stood in the living room and had a moment before they went out for the night. That’s when Sonny started to open up and talk to the narrator and the narrator stopped a listen. “The fact that I had held silence—so long!—when he had needed human speech to help him” (113). Finally, the brothers are at the nightclub and Sonny is playing the piano in the band with his musician friends. . As a result, the narrator is able to witness how talented Sonny music is and how it affected the audience and himself. As Sonny played the people of in the nightclub gathered around Sonny and was touch by the melody. As the narrator listens to Sonny play his music he started to understand Sonny “I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen” (117). The message Baldwin was conveying came in the end of the story at the nightclub.
Baldwin, demonstrated how important it is to respect, and listen to people choices through the narrator point of view, setting and flashback. The narrator himself as one of the main character bring the readers more in-depth into the story. Without the setting and the flashback would have had a difficulty understanding the culture and struggles with society. Yet, it was at the end of the story Baldwin became very