Sonny’s Blues Light and Darkness motifs
One of the most revered of James Baldwin’s stories is Sonny’s Blues; wildly debated for its variety of topics the short story embodies. Racial discrimination, emotional respite through music (Jazz), Harlem’s quandary and Light and Dark imagery are some of the various topics he conveys in this story. James Baldwin contrasts light and dark motifs to denote the narrator’s feelings about different situations he faced in his life. The narrator employs light and dark symbolism to elucidate on the painfulness of reality and the vigor gotten through it; while darkness represents negative aspects of society, light epitomizes a way to survive and a means to save Sonny’s positivity and possible future to anticipate. …show more content…
The narrator introduces this idea by stating “Yet, when he smiled, when we shook hands, the baby brother I 'd never known looked out from the depths of his private life, like an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light.” (Baldwin 79) This was when Sonny was just released from prison; the narrator here says that his brother is waiting to be coaxed onto the light sonny represents a typical citizen who is waiting for the light. This was at a time that sonny needed help, he had just come from almost dying through drugs; so the use of light in this context could only mean that light was sonny’s form of help. He also talks about how light is antithetical to disaster. “boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves encircled by disaster.” (Baldwin 80). If light is opposite of disaster it would mean that light was a form of salvation and darkness is the disaster which encircled them when they came for the …show more content…
“The light from the bandstand spilled just a little short of them and, watching them laughing and gesturing and moving about, I had the feeling that they, nevertheless, were being more careful not to step into the circle of light, too suddenly; that if they moved into the light too suddenly, without thinking, they would perish in flame."(Baldwin 98). The narrator believes in the search for this light patience is needed and it should not be rushed. Sonny had tried rushing to the light and he almost died and was imprisoned. “In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. Then the old folk’s will remember the children and they won 't talk any more that day. And when light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens he 's moved just a little closer to that darkness outside.”(Baldwin 81) Here the light was turned on too quickly for the children and are overtaken with darkness. The narrator’s rendition of Sonny and the other musicians that they should be circumspect in their quest for their light in their life; because of the plausible pain and agony it may cause. As the brothers try to survive the vacuum in their lives every day caused by darkness, the perilous light at the end of the tunnel is their
One of the most revered of James Baldwin’s stories is Sonny’s Blues; wildly debated for its variety of topics the short story embodies. Racial discrimination, emotional respite through music (Jazz), Harlem’s quandary and Light and Dark imagery are some of the various topics he conveys in this story. James Baldwin contrasts light and dark motifs to denote the narrator’s feelings about different situations he faced in his life. The narrator employs light and dark symbolism to elucidate on the painfulness of reality and the vigor gotten through it; while darkness represents negative aspects of society, light epitomizes a way to survive and a means to save Sonny’s positivity and possible future to anticipate. …show more content…
The narrator introduces this idea by stating “Yet, when he smiled, when we shook hands, the baby brother I 'd never known looked out from the depths of his private life, like an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light.” (Baldwin 79) This was when Sonny was just released from prison; the narrator here says that his brother is waiting to be coaxed onto the light sonny represents a typical citizen who is waiting for the light. This was at a time that sonny needed help, he had just come from almost dying through drugs; so the use of light in this context could only mean that light was sonny’s form of help. He also talks about how light is antithetical to disaster. “boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves encircled by disaster.” (Baldwin 80). If light is opposite of disaster it would mean that light was a form of salvation and darkness is the disaster which encircled them when they came for the …show more content…
“The light from the bandstand spilled just a little short of them and, watching them laughing and gesturing and moving about, I had the feeling that they, nevertheless, were being more careful not to step into the circle of light, too suddenly; that if they moved into the light too suddenly, without thinking, they would perish in flame."(Baldwin 98). The narrator believes in the search for this light patience is needed and it should not be rushed. Sonny had tried rushing to the light and he almost died and was imprisoned. “In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. Then the old folk’s will remember the children and they won 't talk any more that day. And when light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens he 's moved just a little closer to that darkness outside.”(Baldwin 81) Here the light was turned on too quickly for the children and are overtaken with darkness. The narrator’s rendition of Sonny and the other musicians that they should be circumspect in their quest for their light in their life; because of the plausible pain and agony it may cause. As the brothers try to survive the vacuum in their lives every day caused by darkness, the perilous light at the end of the tunnel is their