Sunny blues #1 - Summary Composition And Critical Thinking PDF

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This notes helped me analyzed the story and write my essay. I got an A on my essay. ...

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Diana Sirena M. Curran 40062 July 21, 2015

Response Paper #10

The story “Sonny’s Blue” by James Baldwin talks about the different stories of the narrator’s life; moreover, they do it by creating music. In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," music is the central focus of Sonny's life—it is the only thing that seems to release him from his suffering: his addiction, growing up black, feeling alone and cut off from others, and a feeling that he has no one to love or understand him. It is not surprising that Baldwin gives Sonny's character the ability to play jazz—the blues—to better deal with his own suffering, including the awareness that he and his brother cannot communicate and therefore have no connection.

Sonny tries to verbalize to his brother just how important music is to him. "Sometimes you'll do anything to play, even cut your mother's throat." He laughed and looked at me. "Or your brother's." Then he sobered. "Or your own." Ironically, the music that Sonny's brother knows nothing about ultimately creates a bridge between the two men. And while the narrator may not completely understand jazz or the blues, while he may not know anything about the big names of this movement in music, he suddenly is able to better know his brother by seeing his connection to song.

Perhaps in losing his daughter, the narrator could never quite understand Sonny's suffering because it was different than his own; but Sonny's music illuminates the truth of

suffering—a common feeling for a different reason. He understand life better, and death; and most certainly, he sees what a miracle music is to Sonny, and even how much it matters in his own life....