Monday, October 18, 2010
Can Sonny's Blues Be Your Blues?
This story is probably the hardest story that I had to read for Lit. For a short story there was a lot of things in motion before the story began so it was a little tough in the beginning of the read. But the story is about the narrator who picked up the morning paper and saw that his brother was arrested and put in jail. After corresponding several times via mail, the narrators brother Sonny comes to Harlem to visit. The whole interaction between the brothers is very uncomfortable begins to turn awkward. Eventually Sonny hints to his brother that he was addicted to drugs and that was the reason that he went to jail. the narrator attempts to be understanding, but doesn't really succeed at it. This is due in part because throughout the story the narrator feels this sense of discord and and hatred for his surroundings and what Sonny represents. This theme was mentioned so many times that I am going to write about this theme. The narrator left for the army and returned, and in a way never seemed to escape where he came from. Have you known somebody from your childhood that you were so close too and then all of a sudden lost touch, then years later you reconnected with them and you turned out better than they did and when you tried to help them you couldn't relate to them? The theme behind this theme of the narrators feeling of hatred for his surroundings and of his brother is that no matter where you go, no matter what do or will do, no matter how hard you tried, you will never escape the surroundings that you grew up in. It will still catch up to you, just like it did to Sonny.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You can escape your bad surroundings from your past when you deal with them. Escaping a past is dealing with it first. Sonny came out of it at the end.lol.
ReplyDeleteInstead of dreading the day your bad surroundings come back to bite you in the butt, you should ask yourself why you're trying so hard to run away and why it still holds that kind of power over you.
ReplyDeleteWhich... looking up at the comment above, is basically what Rob said. Haha
I like your ending. Something else is that in the beginning of the story it talks about Sonny's brother and what happened but it also shows how Sonny's brother is in some kind of denial of what Sonny is doing. Like He wants to believe that his brother would never do anything like that. He and his brother Sonny both grew up in the same situations but he chose differently than Sonny did. But like you said no matter what your past is always a part of you but you can either let it affect you in a good way or in a negative way.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed the ending and how you focused on the theme. i agree your past will always be there..and it has a way of shaping your life but you get to choice if it for the better or worse.
ReplyDelete