During the war, there was a man named, Joseph Favre Baldwin. He was born August 3, 1892, in Tyler, Texas. Baldwin attended Tulane Medical School and the Virginia Military Academy. Baldwin graduated in 1915 to enlist into the U.S. Army as a surgeon. On August 7, 1918, Baldwin was killed when an artillery shell hit him near the front lines in France.…
Sonny from the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a sympathetic character. Throughout the story, the reader is made to feel sympathy for Sonny even when the narrator is frustrated with him. While some might argue that the narrator is the sympathetic character and Sonny is a difficulty, by the end it is obvious that even the narrator is sympathetic to Sonny and regrets having treated him as a difficulty. One might be tempted at first to argue that Sonny is a burden on the narrator and is meant to be taken as such. However, this is not how Sonny was meant to be portrayed.…
When you read a text, it is usually to inform the reader on knowledge to be learned. There are many ways to persuade someone into understanding your perspective, but how you organize your data is what makes an impact on the reader. What is the point of knowledge if the reader is not aware of the relevance, cause or effect of the information? What is the point of knowledge when you cannot use information to your own advantage? Thus acquiring an understanding of any situation that occurs in your life?…
“Sonny’s Blues”, written by James Baldwin, was first published in 1957 in Partisan Review and was later published again by Baldwin in a collection of short stories called Going to Meet the Man. “Sonny’s Blues” is the story of two brothers, one an Algebra teacher in Harlem and the other a jazz musician tuned heroin addict and drug dealer both suffering from the inequalities faced by African Americans before and during the Civil Rights Movement. The story does not begin with background information, but instead begins with the narrator discovering his brother’s arrest for heroin usage and drug dealing while on his way to his average job as a school teacher. It is necessary to not only analyze the relationship between the brothers and Sonny’s drug…
Everyone wants to make their own original stamp in the world, but sometimes the problem may be they do not know how to or someone they know is holding them back. The story of Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, the narrator tries a lot of times to change his younger brother’s (Sonny) mind about being a musician. Little does he know that all sonny wants to be is a musician. With that being said, sometimes you have to trust yourself to let people go expand their wings.…
The story “Sonny’s Blues” is a depiction of Harlem during the post-war era. It shows the struggle of the individual people to survive, as opposed to the problems of population as a whole. It also embodies some of the possible problems faced by James Baldwin himself. He was also the oldest of nine children, and had a father like the one in the story with a stout personality. He accentuates the problems faced by the family, such as a desire to live in a “safe” neighborhood, but there is no real safe location, since the influences of negative things can penetrate the strongest of walls.…
Role of women in ancient Greek mythology Name Institution Introduction Myths serve two key functions: 1) to answer the kind of awkward questions normally asked by children like ‘How was the world made? Who was the first person to live in the world? Where do the souls of the dead go?’ 2)…
The function of a narrator in any story is to do just that, to narrate the story. However, skilled authors realize that narrators do so much more than simply narrate: they are an essential component of how the story is expressed. Decisions such as having a third person, first person, or omniscient narrator are critical to point of view. In the case of this story, if the narrator had been Sonny himself, the story would be significantly one dimensional; having the brother narrate provides a powerful basis for comparison of life in Harlem. In the short story “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin uses Sonny’s brother, the narrator, to add a layer of meaning to the story that would not exist if the story were told from a third person point of view.…
very author brings their story to life in different ways. They can pull you into a story using literary elements. The use of these devices can make or break a story. The story of Prometheus and the First People if one such story that uses literary elements to bring Greek Mythology to life. In this essay we will analyze the use of literary elements in Prometheus and the First People by Olivia E. Coolidge.…
Storytelling has been an activity since the beginning of early civilization. With their stories people were able to convey messages as well as lessons that are better told than experienced. The Greeks were no different when it came to storytelling and as their religion came to develope so did many great stories of gods and heroes. These stories reflected ideas circulating through the culture on topics of morals as well as an explanation for how the world came to be. Greek people were very interested in the ideas of heroism.…
My first official memory of New York would be taking place in the Bronx, summer of 2003. I was five years old sitting outside on the steps of our apartment building in the Grand Concourse, which is known as “The Project Village”. You could hear the Spanish music that blasted from the other apartment windows, and see the smaller kids like me getting ready to have relay races and actually enjoy the sun, and my favorite which was seeing the coquito man come up the hill with his truck. A coquito in english is simply an icee, and during the summer for one dollar it was a gift sent from above. I was actually running down the hill to meet the coquito man, who we called Papa Juan, and I was stopped by a police officer.…
Each individual person has their own dungeon, a compartment in the mind where an individual’s perspective, morals, attitude and character is stored. In order to keep one’s dungeon unmarked and unchanged, negativity must be blocked. However such a thing is impossible and the only thing a person can do is reduce the amount of change and negativity they let in. In “My Dungeon Shook” by James Baldwin, Baldwin warns his nephew and black youth in general to not let poisonous words or ideas seep into their dungeons and destroy who they are and the potential they have. Young minds are the most malleable and vulnerable to the world around them.…
The Fire Next Time is a collection of two separate essays written by James Baldwin released during the Civil Rights Movement. Both essays give a detailed examination of the ongoing racial struggles taking place in the United States at the time of their publication. Mr. Baldwin goes into great detail about the underlying issues which are contributing to the racial tension in the U.S. Baldwin also provides some worthwhile advice on how to go about repairing the crumbling American populace. Although the ideals and practices supported by Mr. Baldwin emerged from an era long ago, one must recognize how they came about, and how they can still be integrated into today 's society. To fully understand some of the darker concepts portrayed throughout…
Hospitality is Expected Not Suggested Throughout the many Ancient Greek tales written by Edith Hamilton in the book Mythology, the theme of hospitality, along with its rules, expectations, and customs, can be discovered. More specifically, when examining the theme of hospitality and its dependence on the interactions between host and guest, it is revealed that proper or expected hospitality is rewarded while improper or disrespected hospitality is punished. To further explain the importance of this theme in Greek mythology, this report will describe the stories of Baucis and Philemon, Hercules, The Trojan war, and how hospitalities influenced their stories along with the overall Greek culture. To begin, a story that clearly exemplifies…
Though there are many works from ancient Greece that survived, there are two authors that are the most well-known or frequently taught. Homer’s two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are perhaps the most well-known, because of the heroes epic battles of strength and wit against those deemed as enemies. Hesiod’s Works and Days, however, may be the most pertinent to finding out how everyday citizens of ancient Greece went about their everyday lives. These epics detail the lives of both extraordinary and ordinary men’s lives in ancient Greece. When compared to one another, Homer’s heroic world and Hesiod’s more common world have many similarities, such as views towards religion and right and wrong, and a significant difference, the role of women.…