Essays on Sonny's Blues

Light transforms, destroys, and elevates experiences and thoughts throughout ‘Sonny’s Blues’, by James Baldwin. Sonny and his brother, the narrator, grew up in the ‘dark’ atmosphere of Harlem and its housing projects and deteriorating, drug-ridden streets. The process of growing up, of losing their parents,...

There is a worn-out old saying about how when a door closes, there will always be a window to crawl through instead. But what if the window has bars on it? Or what if it is too high for someone to reach without anyone to...

In the story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin the narrator explains the hardships that mainly his brother had to face, but also the rest of his family faced when he was a child. He displays this by telling a continuous stream of stories indirectly reflecting...

In “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin explores the impact of drugs on the users and their families. The abuse of heroin results in the destruction of artistic talent, lives, and relationships with the family members. Sonny uses drugs as a means of escaping from an environment that...

“Sonny’s Blues”, written by James Baldwin is a short fiction story published in 1957. The story takes place at the beginning of the civil rights movement. It describes the relationship between two brothers, one that has fallen in the drug cycle of Harlem, and the...

In many instances works of literature portray real life situations whether it be physical, emotional or mental issues. Humans all experience some form of suffering in their lives. Works of literature use the theme of suffering to portray how people suffer in their own way...

Bigotry is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races...

Martin Luther King and James Baldwin lived in the era of racial inequality and the civil rights movement, an era when African-Americans were still fighting to find a place in society. In 1963, King wrote a famous letter from jail while in 1957; Baldwin for...

James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’ is the tale of a youthful jazz artist (Sonny) from Harlem, NY who gets dependent on heroin, is captured for utilizing and selling medications, and comes back to his youth neighborhood after his discharge from jail. He moves in with his...

Humans are made of the tangible; flesh and blood, muscles and bones, cells and nerves. The survival of man can be dissected into the purely scientific, the emotionless, the artless. The value of the anatomical can clearly not be understated, as such is the basest...

When reading the short story ‘Sonny’s Blues’ you can see it is Baldwin’s exceptionally acclaimed treatment of his trademark subjects the kind of diversion, race cognations in the United States singular anguish, and withal the use of craftsmanship. In the 1950s, NYC, the story is...

In the poem “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin was narrated from the perspective of Sonny’s brother. The poem goes along to tell a story about an African American math teacher in 1950s Harlem, to his brother Sonny, a jazz pianist who has dealt with...

Inspiration and suffering go side by side for talented, but devastated people. Blues is the music of sorrow, expression of honest emotions and inner pain. The person who feels this unexplainable emptiness needs to create and the only chance to understand this feeling is to...

The short story titled Sonny’s Blues written by James Baldwin, and the play A Doll’s House written by Henrik Ibsen, have many similarities and differences when it comes to settings, symbols, and characters. Although they may seem like two completely different works, they have a...

“Sonny’s Blues” and “I Have a Dream”: Presentation of Black Oppression In practical subjects, like math, it is often frowned upon to find your own way of doing something. Students are expected to pay attention to their lessons and use the exact same methods that...