Life Changing Events In Sonny's Blues And A Good Man Is Hard To Find

One tends to meet someone who seems to be in charge of everyone around him or her. The grandmother in Flannery O’Conner’s A Good Man is Hard to Find is an extraordinary, scheming character that is extremely unrelenting in her actions to control people. On the contrary, she may have been a person just trying to attempt to save her own life without trying to be controlling. Maybe the fact that she was raised in a time when woman wore dresses to go out and never did anything unlady-like, made her think that her way of thinking and acting was the only acceptable behavior, even till the very moments before she was killed by the Misfit. The grandmother was trying to change her killer’s outlook on life and his position on holy grace and

In the short story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin a schoolteacher from the city of Harlem struggles with life and figuring out how to helped his troubled brother. All though named Sonny’s Blues the main character is actually Sonny’s brother who is the narrator and goes through his life and how he reacts to the many problems his younger brother has come into. The brothers grew up in the poverty stricken city of Harlem where the brothers had to avoid drugs and violence constantly. Growing up, Sonny struggled to stay out of trouble and ended up making some bad decisions throughout his life and ends up landing him in jail and addicted to heroin. The un-named brother of Sonny who is the narrator of the story begins to

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, is a short story that takes place in Harlem. It is told through the perspective of his brother, who is the narrator. The story is focused on Sonny and his music, more specifically, how the music was redemption for Sonny. For Sonny, the music helped establish his identity while also helping him find a place in society. Thus, a kind of reconciliation occurs among various conflicts, which is symbolized by the drink his brother sends to him at the end. Music is crucial to Sonny’s identity and that is because it was a means for him to escape the life of drugs. Based on his brother’s perspective a fair representation of Sonny’s relationship with music, a picture of Sonny’s struggle for redemption becomes clear.

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” have a numerous amount of similarities as well as contrasts in regards to characterization, character names, and symbolism. Moreover, as the plots of each story develop, it is to be noted that the way in which each story is written is the primary reason behind how the reader portrays it. It is seen that both stories are written very to the point and do not leave room for much detail. Considering that they are both short stories, the protagonist plays a huge role in the plot progression.

The narrator experienced a lot of problems throughout his life but managed to emerge victoriously from most of them. Even with this, he needs to support Sonny because this was his mother's dying wish. "The death of the narrator's daughter, Sonny's failure to fit in with his own family, a stint in the navy all serve to alienate the brothers, even after their mother made the narrator promise to keep an eye on young Sonny" (Smith 22). The fact that they were born in a harsh environment, society's views in regard to their racial background, and the fact that they experienced a lot of hardships during their lives all had a severe effect on the personalities of each of the brothers.

In reading the story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin, we learn of two brothers and their lives growing up in Harlem. The narrator, who is the older brother in the story, narrates the trials and tribulations he and his younger brother (Sonny) had to endure growing up in such a harsh environment of Harlem (due to the drugs, violence, and Black's being looked down upon in general in the mid-1950s). We start in the future (present), with the narrator having a somewhat successful future being a teacher and having a wife and two kids (with one of them passing away due to polio disease). We learned very early that Sonny was locked up due to possession of heroin. The narrator originally found out about the tragic news from a newspaper, then later,

The story begins by telling the readers how Sonny’s brother learned of him being in jail from a newspaper article (29), one might automatically infer that their relationship isn’t so good. It makes you wonder how much influence Sonny’s brother had when it came to how his life ended up. At one point in the beginning of the story his brother even asks himself if he had anything to do with it (33), as if to help the readers with the already occurring thought that maybe he could have helped his brother, maybe he could have been there and done more. Later on, he talks about the promise he made to his mother to take care of his brother, to lift him up and not let him fall (42). He had a responsibility to his little brother and he ultimately let him down, he let him fall and wasn’t around to help him back up when he needed it the most.

As well as in the short story Sonny’s Blues, the main character, Sonny, is being criticized by his brother. Since the very beginning, their mother told the oldest one, ‘’ you got to hold on to your brother ’’ and that’s what he wanted to do, but Sonny took a different path than he did. Sonny was the kind of guy that was heroin-addicted and a jazz musician, but his older brother didn’t see all these sides of him. We discover all these sides by the use of flashback of the author throughout the major parts of the story. The author didn’t want us to see Sonny like his older brother was seeing him, he wanted us to see him as a poor, un-accepted guy that needed to be listened by his peers. The brother didn’t accept the journey that Sonny had taken, but if he would of saw the actual Sonny, and stop hiding in the darkness, he would of accepted him faster and understand that Sonny only wanted to show that he could do good things not only drugs. In the middle of the story, there is a flashback were we learn that actually Sonny is more experienced about life than his older brother, because Sonny was in drugs and was really affected by Harlem( the city they stayed in when they were younger). The brother had a pretty easy life; he became a teacher and had a little family. This demonstrates that we need support from our peers, to be able to continue without taking bad choices.

It was painful for him to see his daughter suffer, and now she was no longer alive. He reminisces through the following quote, “where Isabel is weeping against me seems a mortal wound” (98). This signifies that this sadness was unbearable to the narrator. It felt as though: how much more sadness could one bear in this lifetime? In fact, he feared his brother would pass away just like his little girl, yet for other unnatural causes. Hence, if Sonny did die, he would feel guilty about his death for a lifetime. Second, he recalled a conversation he had with his momma about keeping his brother safe, “You got to hold on to your brother, she said, and don’t let him fall no matter what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you gets with him” (92). The occurrence of these two important events motivated the narrator to change his views about his brother. Thirdly, finding out about Sonny’s misfortune through the papers, opened his eyes to his brother’s misery, “I read it, and I couldn’t believe it, and I read it again” (83).

As we examined the essay “Sonny’s Blues” and “The Rich Brother” that may not have a great deal in common, but with more analysis in to the stories it becomes clear that they are similar but still have their own uniqueness. The stories are “The rich brother” which was written by Tobias Wolff is known for short stories or memoir and “Sonny’s Blues” which was written by James Baldwin also an American writer best known for its eloquence or rhetorical force in his writing. Both writers a best known for their famous writing than span for decades.

James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" highlights the struggle because community involvement and individual identity. Baldwin's "leading theme - the discovery of identity - is nowhere presented more successfully than in the short story 'Sonny's Blues" (Reilly 56). Individuals breeds isolation and even persecution by the collective, dominant community. This conflict is illustrated in three ways. First, the story presents the alienation of Sonny from his brother, the unnamed narrator. Second, Sonny's legal problems suggest that independence can cause the individual to break society's legal conventions. Finally, the text draws heavily from biblical influences. Sonny returns to his family just like the prodigal son, after facing

In the story of “Sonny’s Blues,” by Baldwin, the beginning of the story finds Sonny’s brother on his way to work reading about Sonny’s predicament. Sonny got arrested for “peddling and using heroin.” He didn’t want to believe that his brother was in trouble. While teaching his algebra class he was thinking about the past. He remembered when he first suspected his Sonny of using Heroin. He was always under the impression that Sonny was, “wild, but he wasn’t crazy. And he’d always been a good boy.” So he refused to believe that his brother was in trouble and needed him.

Sonny’s Blues is a novella with Sonny and his brother a teacher as main characters; Sonny engaged in drug use and peddling an act that landed him prison where his brother visited him and eventually on release he lived with him. Sonny’s parents died at different times during the racial segregation epoch in America, they were African-Americans who suffered victimization. Before her mother’s death, she had instructed Sonny’s senior brother - a teacher- to take care of him because the surrounding world was dark symbolic for unfriendly. The theme of brotherly love begins when their mother requests them

"Sonny's Blues" opens with news that Sonny has been recently apprehended during a drug bust, which establishes that Sonny has had an ongoing problem with drug addiction, specifically heroin. While the narrator is apprehensive about contacting Sonny after this incident as the brother have lost touch over the years, he eventually reaches out to Sonny and gains insight into what Sonny has been doing during their estrangement; it is also during this time that the narrator recognizes that music is not only an artistic outlet for Sonny, but also provides an emotional and psychological catharsis for him and those that listen to his music. Sonny best describes his dependency on music as he talks to his brother after an old-fashioned revival meeting during which there was much singing. Sonny states,

James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” tells the tale of a young jazz musician by the name Sonny who gets caught up in the ghetto life and decides to abuse and sell heroin. The story is told by the narrator, a high school math teacher, who happens to be Sonny’s older brother. The two siblings have a somewhat cold relationship that is worsened by the suffering that both brothers have had to endure living in an impoverished area. By presenting events that transpired in the past and relating them to the present, the narrator allows the reader to create his or her own understanding of the two characters through the various themes and literary styles. “Sonny’s Blues” is not merely the story of the narrator’s experiences; it is the tale of his inner transformation and spiritual growth which his earlier experiences of death and loss have motivated.