Sonny's Blues Compare And Contrast Essay

Superior Essays
Each person has his or her individual path to follow, no two paths are exactly the same; but, every now and then, paths interweave and people construct bonds with each other. In the case of Sonny and his brother, the narrator, in James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, their paths were parallel with one another until they grew up. Sonny left the slums of Harlem, aspiring to become a musician, while his brother settled in Harlem and became a teacher. Although the narrator and his brother ended up with completely different lives, the narrator being a family man with a teaching job and Sonny, an ex-convict playing jazz at a club, are ironically more similar than they are portrayed.
Since the beginning the brothers were the same, though having
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He chose to improve the slums and tried to help others avoid what happened to Sonny. The narrator’s mother’s wish was for him to watch over his brother when she was no longer there for him. He has promised he would even though he allowed Sonny to distance himself away from him. Sonny, not having a proper parental figure chose terrible decisions in his life. This caused the narrator to become a teacher to influence all the young people in the slums to wish for a better future, for better lives. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the narrator states that, “[Sonny had] been a good boy, he hadn’t ever turned hard or evil or disrespectful, the way kids can, so quick, so quick, especially in Harlem” (Baldwin 287). The narrator’s statement about Sonny reaches a broader population, referring to all adolescence, or simply persuadable kids, in the slums; he expresses the idea that no matter how virtuous somebody is in Harlem, it is all but too easy to follow the wrong path. The Georgia Tech Center for Career Discovery and Development posted an article titled, “Why do I want to teach?” which says
“Not everyone can be a teacher. You have to have the personal drive, motivation, skill set, patience level, and ability to motivate others… Teaching provides one the chance to mentor students in areas outside the scope of a classroom whether through coaching a sport or sponsoring a club. Mostly, teachers have the chance each day to make a lasting impression on someone else. Teachers have the opportunity to be strong, positive influences on 100s of students over the course of a career. Not many professions provide that.” (“Why do I want to teach?”

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