What are your initial reactions to the story
Why the first paragraph of the story?
What do you think of Sonny? What does the narrator think of Sonny?
What is Sonny’s view on heroin?
What role does jazz play? How is it portrayed? (Be specific here).
How does your overall view differ from that of the narrator’s? Why does it differ?
What is the significance of the last sentence?
What is the vision of the story?
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When i first looked at it i knew that it was going to be long but this was too long to be considered a short story in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph of the story makes you know that something has gone on and had an impact on the narrator. The narrator said "sonny was wild, but he wasnt crazy. and he'd always been a good boy he hadnt ever turned evil or disrespectful". Sonny believes that the heroin keeps him from drowning in the suffering that all human beings have to go through in their lives. Sonny likes jazz and wanted to be like Charlie parker. I guess Jazz could be compared to the heroin and it helps relieve the suffering and is a replacement for the heroin. I would say jazz is portrayed as a drug. The narrator is in relation with sonny so if i think of sonny as a bad person because of the drugs i dont have the personal experiences with him to know him better as a person an i would be assuming a lot of things. I do not get the significance of the last sentence.
My initial reaction to looking at the story was that it caught my attention very quickly. I didn't think it could keep my attention though, due to it's length. However, it did in fact keep my attention. I really enjoyed reading this story.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph in this story sets up his the authors life as it is, and presents the issue to the reader. As we go deeper into the story we find out the stories of the author and his brother.
I think that Sonny is doing what every other person in the world does. They try to cope with their problems and try to do what makes them happy in life. This was a tougher road for Sonny though, and he ended up hanging out with the people who didn't exactly help him find his way the best way they could have. They did help him pursue his passion of music, but they helped push him into his addiction as well.
The narrator is mad at Sonny, but is kind of scared of him for the fact that he does not understand why he is doing what he is.
Sonny understands why people like herion and likes the feeling of being control while he takes it, but knows it is not a permanent solution to his problems.
Jazz is how Sonny expresses himself. The whole band interacts and expresses themselves through their music, the author sees this wonderfully.
My view is that Sonny is a good guy but hasn't had the guidance that he desprately needed, but he somehow found his way- after suffering due to his drug problem. I think the author sees him like this, but it takes him a while to open up enough to do that. For a while he doesn't understand Sonny, but he's always there for him.
The last sentance just reinforces the fact that it's not over.
I really enjoyed reading this piece from the get go. The first paragraph provided a hook to bring us right into the story and to let us think it would go in a certain direction (which of course would be different than I thought...) It also provided excellent imagery ("I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car,and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside.")
ReplyDeleteHonestly my view of Sonny changed as I read the story. My initial thought was "this guy is the black sheep of the family...a bum who wasted his life away". But as the story went on I saw that he was just a lost,angry, and confused boy who saw no future for himself in Harlem (that is until he found jazz/blues music). The narrator obviously loves his brother and dreads the day when the fate of a young black man who has no direction will catch up with him. He does not want to see his brother transformed into one of "them"-a street wanderer who dies lonely and in despair. He views Sonny as a brother but also like a son in many ways because of their age difference and the responsibility that he has to take care of him.
Sonny described heroin briefly..."It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. And distant. And-and sure...It makes you feel-in control. Sometimes youve got to have that feeling." He views the drug as a way to cope with his life, a way to briefly rise above his dismal situation and let his mind break free of its worries.
Jazz music is like the heroin only at a greater level-it provides an escape for Sonny and his bandmates. The African Americans of Angelou's story had the revival and the whorehouse-the men of Harlem have drugs and jazz music. The playing of the jazz/blues music at the end of the piece is described in as much detatil if not more as Angelou's revival. It is like a great symphony of emotion with so many intricate parts; hidden messages between these suffering men being passed along with each note.
My view differs in the fact that I am an outsider to this issue. I don't know what it feels like to not have a definitive future, or one that would be positive or what you wanted anyway. I could never understand the childhood these men had in Harlem and could never share in their tears shed at the end of the piece.
The last sentence draws back to what Sonny said about "trembling" earlier-he took heroin "in order to keep from shaking to pieces." That glass on the piano represented how the emotions of the men that had been buried deep inside were finally released through the music.
"The vision of the story" (?) I guess is that of African Americans realizing the bleak future that lay before them because of prejudice, lack of opportunity, and oppression and how some can cope with it and how some cannot. Their methods may have been different, but without any form of escape you would not have survived for very long...
My initial reaction to the story is that it was very long. When i see something is that long it tends to turn me away and I have to fight through it.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph gives the issue and sets it up. Sonny is doing what he has to do and what he thinks is right, and he ends up turning to heroin to cope with his problems. He should have pursued his love of music more. The narrator is mad at sonny and doesnt understand why he does this. Sonny likes the way heroin makes him feel and says it helps him to feel in control. He uses it to cope with life. Sonny likes jazz music and it is a way for him to express himself. Jazz music is almost like a drug to him, like the heroin. My view differs from the narrator because I am not related to Sonny and dont know him. I only know what was provided about him and nothing else. Im not sure what the vision of the story is.
Surprisingly enough, this story kept my attention throughout the whole piece. After reading this I really couldn't help comparing this story to the song Piano Man by Billy Joel in which people come to forget their troubles to listen to someone play music. I kind of saw a similarity between Sonny and the people portrayed in the song as well as the recurring themes of suffering. I really don't have that much of an opinion of Sonny. He was a character that had some problems. Other than that I really didn't think of anything about him. The narrator sees him as someone who needs to be directed and sees himself to be the person to direct him. The narrator sees Sonny as someone who is well guarded and rigid in their ways despite people trying to change him. Sonny sees heroin as something to enhance his mental being and to play music better. He likes the feeling of being in control. I think that this is because he doesn't seem to have been in charge of anything in his life and heroin gives him the feeling that he's been longing for and yet been denied. Jazz is portrayed as a language that is used to express emotion. The people who Sonny was living with when his brother was deployed didn't know the "language" and so they heard the musical equivalent to gibberish. It would be like one of us listening to Japanese. We would have no clue what's going on. In the end however, Sonny is surround by people who understand jazz and is regarded as king. His brother even starts to understand it a little but only because of the body language of the musicians. Like one of us trying to uderstand one who speaks a foreign language through body language and emotion. My view was a lot more detached than the narrator's. This is because I'm not emotionally connected to Sonny and have never known him. Where I look at it as words on paper, he has lived through this and actually experienced it. I really didn't understand the "cup of trembling." I thought that it was an allusion to something that I didn't know about. Other than that the end of the sentence doesn't make sense to me. I think that the vision of the story was about being stoic until you find your place in life.
ReplyDeleteAs I do for every piece I check how long the piece is that I'm about to read. I complained to myself when I found out its physical length, but I feel as though the length you feel when you have actually completed the piece isn't nearly as long as you originally thought it was. I liked this piece a lot. I felt like this is the most embraced piece I have read this year. I read this in one sitting and I took about two to two and one-half hours to do so. I took my time because I wanted to. I worked to comprehend every word and phrase. I like this piece a lot. I did not struggle with reading it after I truly began reading it. The first paragraph is partially meant to have you ask yourself "what is he talking about?" The fact that he is on a subway shows the area in which he lives in, which most of us aren't traditionally experienced with. It also is meant to intrigue us. Sonny is at the core a very good and passionate person who is and can be rough on the outside who in the past made some bad decisions. Sonny thinks heroin is a way in which he can manage his life, I believe this to be a false sense of security and of course it is never anywhere near a permanent or viable solution. Sonny states that he wanted to get away from Harlem, to get away from the drugs and evil. Jazz plays a role of showing interaction between the instrument and the musician. The instrument is a correlation of the musician and their emotion and story. Baldwin describes the instruments as them talking to each other and interacting, this is very significant. Sonny is am amazing and complex individual. Many may see him as being washed up or as a druggie or a person who always make bad decisions. Your actions are who you are. Sonny is a fantastic musician, Jazz shows enormous expression from the musician, the instrument is just a medium, Sonny plays from his experiences, his decisions have made who he is which is an amazing musician. We his decisions really wrong if they have created an amazing musician? The last sentence reiterates the fact that things will move on.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Sonny's Blues was a great story and was very well-written. I found this story to be quite moving and it was easy to relate to, having a brother myself. The aspect that stood out to me the most, however, was how well I was able to visualize the story, which says something about Baldwin as a writer.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph is Baldwin's way of capturing your interest right from the start because he wants you to "interact" with his piece. When he writes, "I read it in the paper.." the reader immediately wants to know what "it" is. Since he never says what "it" is in the first paragraph, you have to read further if you want to find out.
Initially, I thought that Sonny was just a loser who had gotten into drugs and was throwing his life away. As the story progressed, I became more impressed with Sonny as he found a way to change his life around after exploring his passion for music. It is quite clear that the narrator has strong feelings for Sonny and he cares about him a lot. Not only is Sonny his only brother, but his mother had asked him to take care of him before he died, so he feels responsible for him.
Sonny views heroin as an "escape" from his problems in life, a way to temporarily erase his mind of all dismal thoughts. Once he drifted away from using heroin, he began spending all of his time playing music. Jazz became his new outlet of expression and way of coping with the struggles of life. In the eyes of the narrator, jazz musicians were the "good-time people" and Sonny was above their level in his opinion. My overall view differs from the narrator because I do not know Sonny personally or have a close relationship with him as the narrator does. Therefore I don't have emotions getting in the way of my analysis of the story.
The last sentence is significant because it implies that Sonny's struggle is not yet over and it will take a long time before he will be able to put his past behind him. The vision of the story is (in my opinion) that it is nearly impossible to overcome difficult situations alone and it is important that you have people close to you who care, and are always there for you. (the narrator is there for Sonny when he needs him most)
I liked this story. When I first saw that it was quite long I wasn't sure if It would keep my interest or not but it did. It had a lot of life lessons in it and taught you a lesson. I think that the first paragraph of this essay was used to hook you into the story and to make you keep reading it. It also gave the background of this story. It made you want to go more indepth in the story and experience what was going on with the character at this time in his life. There was also a sense of wonder and thought in the first paragraph of this essay. I think that Sonny is a good character but he is going through a rough patch in his life and he needs some guidance from his family and especially his brother. Sonny never did heroine before he met one of his friends. He wanted to experience what heroine felt like and how it was like to experience such a thing but he got caught up in doing heroine and can't find a way to get out of using it. He uses heroine to get out of the troubles and struggles in his life. Jazz is a very important element to Sonny in his life. He pours his heart and soul into it and also uses this to get away from his life and the society that surrounds him. The significance of the last sentence is that I think the glass of scotch represents his life.Glowing in the happy times of life, like when he is playing the piano. And trembling when he has struggles in life, like battling his drug addiction and other situations in his life. I really liked the description the narrator used at the beggining when he talks about the ice that was building and melting in his stomach. It really brought out his emotions.
ReplyDeleteI loved this piece so much! It was incredibly eye opening and just so full of this profound substance that was both foreign and farmiliar. I recently started listening to Lil Wayne a lot and this piece reminded me alot of his song Misunderstood. Both really eye opening really deep peices that show what a life may be like that you just wrote off. One that you never really counted as a life at all. Suffering that perhaps you didn't feel like was worth being understood. And as Sonny's brother analyzes this pain and how it affects different people's live, Lil Wayne is the brother. But he is different in that, he does not care if you understand him. Like the brother he knows that no one on the outside will ever really understand what it's like. Loved both pieces! Look it up sometime :) thought provoking!! You will however find that the song like the piece is really fricken long.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph really expresses how far from caring the brother was. It showed how little Sonny had come to mean to him over the years and it showed how hard this really touched him. I think the first paragraph was also vital in a sense that made you think, who is more of a monster? The man who's stuck in a dark pit, struggling to get out, or the man who turned his back on him because he wasn't strong enough to lend a hand?
I think Sonny like so many others is simply trapped. A hard ass may choose not to have any kind of sympathy but that's just wrong to me. It's like the piece said, everyone suffers. How can we judge someone that simply chooses to avoid it a different was than us? Can we say that we would not do the same thing if we were in his shoes? Say yes and nine times out of ten i'll call you a liar. I think the narrator really struggled with the idea that his brother was never perfect. Which seems to be part of the battle in the piece, to fill in the chasm where Sonny stopped being an addict and began to be the author's brother again.
Sonny's view on heroin is that it is simply his coping mechanism. He understands what it does to him better than anyone else. And yet it's this understanding that seems to make him want to return to it.
Jazz is what sonny wanted. It was the dream. It was what he wanted and it was what he was denied. It turns out the Jazz turned into blues when what he wanted was taken.
Well I know what it's like to have to separate a family member from what they do. And then try to be comfortable welding the two parts of the person back together again when you see them. It's dificult and i think that the author was lucky to have the opportunity to see his brother for more than what he had been or hadn't. I kinda don't know what you mean by this as to whether you mean his view of sonny and how their relationship has gone or how my life is different from the author's. Well obvioulsy i'm a white teenage girl living in the country in the new milenium. He's not any of those things so clearly my view of his world will be less than transparent. But my view of sonny, would more than likely be the same. His experience was truly a human experience and the author brings it out so very well that only a bullheaded idiot would refuse to understand what either of these brothers have gone through. just sayin.