Sonny Hickam Jr Characteristics

Going to school was not very important to Sonny so he didn’t go which caused more problems with his family so he went to the navy (48-49). After dropping out of school and leaving Sonny’s relationship with his brother was really nonexistent, all they did was argue until one-day Sonny told his brother he was dead to him (49). Sonny’s lack of support affected him emotionally, which led to drug use and eventually landed him in jail.

In the film after Sonny’s father, Homer, hurts his eye and Sonny takes a job at the mine to help out his family instead of staying in school. In the memoir, however, Sonny does not help his family out and he stays in school and keeps building rockets so he can get the scholarship to go to college. According to October Sky, on page 289,”’He’ll probably lose his right eye…’’’. Homer did lose his right eye and Sonny did nothing to help him as he did in the film. This means that in the memoir Sonny did not work in the mines like he did in the memoir.

(Hickam Jr. 334) In Rocket Boys, there are numerous members of the BCMA (Big Creek Missile Agency), all with varying personalities and traits they bring to the rocket club. Sonny (Homer), the protagonist of the memoir is a teenager trying not to stumble through high school. He acts like an adolescent boy, chasing girls, getting into fights, and often overlooking his appearance. The passage I chose shows his naivety, and his young innocence, through attitude and language, conveyed by the author to depict a teenager.

One of the obstacles that Sonny faced was the trial and error process that happened when Sonny and the rest of the rocket boys were launching their rockets. Many of their rockets flew off course at people, cars, and buildings, which had many people thinking that the boys should not be allowed to launch their rockets. Another thing that happened during the trial and error process was that many of their rockets blew up before ever lifting off of the ground. These problems made them have to find out what went wrong and would make them spend hours trying to fix the problem. They did get through these problems that they encountered. Sonny had a couple of friends at the mine that his dad worked

Sonny loved Jazz music and it held a great significance to him. He was having a discussion with the narrator about what he wanted to do with his life, how he wanted to become a jazz musician and how he wanted to join the army to pursue that goal. Of course this was disheartening and confusing to the narrator because; one he didn’t want Sonny to join the danger of being in the army. He also didn’t think that Sonny could make a proper living from being a jazz artist. He although, supported Sonny anyway. He let Sonny stay in his wife’s house while he was off in the army. Whilst Sonny was there, he played the piano regularly, learning and determined to achieve his goal. This of course to me showed that Sonny was a determined and disciplined person who fought against odds to get what he wanted from life. I feel like Sonny’s uncle and himself shared similar characteristics which is why I think he was mentioned in the first place. In that both Sonny and his uncle were interested in music, funny nonchalant characters with disciplined and determined

The narrator always wanted the best for his younger brother Sonny. Sonny from the beginning of the story has a hard history of using drugs, ending up in jail, and not finishing school. Once both of their parents had passed, the

Truman Capote gives the reader a detailed report of Perry Smith's and Dick Hickock's childhoods. Smith's childhood was very problematic and

Sonny wants to get away from heroin and become a musician. He practices every day because he wants to be good. It gets to the point where Isabella says it's not even like living with a person anymore. Throughout the story, we come to find that Sonny is a drug addict, a dreamer, and a musician. He uses all of these things to try and escape the environment

His mother shared a story with him about his father and his uncle. She wanted him to promise to take care of his brother. She may have had an idea that Sonny was in trouble. After their mother died Sonny told his brother that he didn’t want to stay in Harlem anymore. His brother wanted him to finish school and stay another year. He saw the worry and concern in Sonny’s eyes, but dismissed it. This was Sonny’s way of telling his brother that he needed help before it was too late. Sonny pulled away from him and stated, “I hear you. But you never hear anything I say.”

I just don’t altogether get it. That’s all.” (Sonny’s Blues pg 351 paragraph 126). He admits that he does not get what the drive for Sonny was. He could not put himself in his brothers view or try to get to know the brother that had a seven-year age gap from

Reissman had taught her students the importance of looking at situations in different perspectives through the method she calls, “Leaving Out to Pull In.” Reissman herself learned while reading a work of literature, she learned that her cultural background affected the way she viewed the author of the piece she read. It was only when the author stated her cultural background explicitly that Reissman was able to distinguish why she thought that way (Reissman 20). So, applying the same method to her student’s, purposely leaving out “specific references or names of places, native language terms or customs which would reveal the author’s cultural background” (Reissman 20). The student were then asked, after hearing the literature more than once, what the cultural background of the author is. The results were that the students had applied their own cultural background to the story. This corresponds to the narrator’s change in “Sonny’s Blues” because he had only looked at people from the outside, in both appearance and good or bad actions, therefore making it hard to connect to his brother. But, the loss of his daughter allowed the narrator to open his eyes to look beyond the outside of Sonny and learn more about

Characters: The narrator of the story remains unnamed throughout the whole story. He marries Isabel, and together they form a family. He has a steady job as a high school algebra teacher; however, he has not been able to evolve away from his social class. He and his family live in a housing project…just like the house Sonny and [he] grew up.

Listening is fundamental in communicating with others. The narrator hardly listened to his brother regardless if it was about his goals in life. When Sonny first brought up the idea of becoming a jazz musician, his brother responded by saying, "Are you serious" (p.90). In addition, Sonny's brother did not take his brother's remark seriously and told him to start thinking about his future. The narrator wanted Sonny to finish school and get a decent job, anything besides playing jazz for a living. "I gave up. I decided, if he didn't change his mind, that we could always talk about it later" (p.91). This clearly exemplifies that the narrator ignored his brother. He must have looked at Sonny as his younger brother, where he thought Sonny was not able to make the right decisions because of his age at the time and needed guidance. The narrator lacked patience in listening as well as replied with negative responses that demonstrated bad communication. In order to solve this problem, Sonny's brother should have listened to Sonny more thoroughly and responded in a positive manner so Sonny would not have the sense of loneliness and seclusion.

Vanity and Insecurity as the Root of Envy. In A Separate Piece, John Knowles tells the story of Gene Forrester, a high school-aged male attending Devon School, a boys boarding school in New Hampshire, amid the Second World War. Gene’s roommate Phineas, otherwise known as Finny, is a good-natured, well-liked, athletically skilled boy compared to Gene’s typical academic identity. The two are extremely close to each other as they journey through their school experience, as Gene admires the person Finny is.

As he steeps more into a depression he probably didn’t know he was going through. All the responsibility he had put on himself when he secretly thinks he failed his mother wishes they way he was told that his father had failed his brother. On a level continuing this cycle he was hiding from. Sonny was different he wanted to live in the past he wanted to move forward , his escape was to drugs were he thought he was in control but in reality the very thing that he thought made him have control could make him lose control and lose his dreams . Sonny knew he had a problem and how to come about dealing with it.