How is it possible to live with such joy in such poor conditions? This is exactly what everyone wonders about a young man by the name of Mr.Blue. Mr.Blue, written by Myles Connoly, is about a young man who is often viewed as insane by others for his peculiar joy and views on the world, and his close friend, the narrator of the story, who is constantly challenged by Mr.Blue’s morals and values. Mr.Blue’s sole purpose is to preach the Gospel to others. It's not something that he views as a chore, but instead something that brings him joy and that he hopes will bring others joy as well. The narrator is also Christian, but has different morals than Blue and is a level-headed, reasonable man compared to Mr.Blue. As the story progresses, the narrator’s …show more content…
Blue showed the narrator that everyone and everything should be loved, no matter who they are or what they are. One example of this is when the narrator saw Blue traveling with a man who has inherited a lot of money. The narrator was annoyed by this man because he saw the man as snobbish and entitled due to the amount of money the man had of which he didn’t earn. He speculated that the man was just using Blue, and when he told this to him he just laughed. Blue says to him “I supposed you consider the exhortation ‘love your neighbor’ a figure of speech. You would only love the loveable. Did you ever try to love someone who was mean,petty, shallow, and selfish?” (Connolly 77) what Blue tries to tell the narrator is that we as Christians have to love everyone just as God does. We only love those who we like, those who have good personalities or morals, but we should try to love even those who we don’t like, those who are petty and selfish. It takes a lot to love someone who may not seem loveable, and in making this so difficult it makes them just as petty. We have to hate the sins that person commits but not the person …show more content…
But to instead focus on our relationship with God and how if we do that, materialistic things will not matter to us anymore, and we can live without anything and still be happier than ever-just like Blue. One of the things that the narrator says about Blue is that he “believed in humility and he was humble. He believed that nothing else mattered outside of saving one’s soul and making others noble and amiable…” (Connolly 66) In the book, Blue never expressed any sort of care towards things that society values. And that is what made him seem crazy and insane to others. Blue preferred a simple life because he knew he didn’t need anything but a good relationship with God to make him happy. Blue could appreciate the small things in life and make them seem like they were a luxury because of
From the very beginning of the tale, the sorrow is palpable through the unnamed narrator 's discovery of Sonny 's incarceration, and moreover through the atmosphere created by Mr. Baldwin. The most prominent message that can be deciphered and recognized in Sonny 's Blues is that the sadness and sorrow that one experiences in their life can bring about many obstacles but it can be countered and used for something greater by a search for understanding and acceptance. James Baldwin establishes this implication through the use of his characters; the narrator, Sonny, and the singer seen on the street. All these characters experience sorrow and sadness in their
(European Graduate School) In Sonny’s Blues Baldwin shows both his influence of from Black people and drug addiction to the loneliness that situations create and how isolation occurs during troubling times. Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is a story of struggle and redemption through others. James Baldwin uses the narrator the story from a first person point of view which leads to a sense of disorientation in the reader and contributes to the stories theme of forgiveness.
“Sonny’s Blues” is a first person narrative written by James Baldwin, a former African American author. The story is focussed on many different concepts of life and the author's life clearly defines the reason to writing the story. Born in Harlem, the setting of “Sonny’s Blues,” James saw various forms of living as he grew. The author used his younger experiences and time with the church to create this significant writing. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the narrator, an unnamed character shown as an algebra teacher, and his brother, Sonny, grew apart when Sonny found a pull towards both music and heroin.
The brothers represent not only Baldwin himself, but their entire culture as well. Moreover, the blues express the battles, the condition and the rage that comes with being a black man in American society (Fares 72). The blues are a mutual understanding of suffering between every single person in the community; they are symbolic of the love that lets them bear the weight of the world in their shoulders with confidence because they know they are not alone. Baldwin wrote “Sonny’s Blues” to show that only an individual holds the power to accept their own suffering, and only when they come to terms with their pain, will they begin to understand the pain of those before them like the narrator did during his epiphany. In unison, they will set a framework for the generations that follow as they try to find a solution to their overall role in
In that moment the narrator finally understands Sonny’s love for music. Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” displays the theme of brotherly love to illustrate, that love can keep a family together no matter how many fights or issues there may be. Baldwin demonstrates the theme of brotherly love all through this story. The first example we see of brotherly love is when the two brothers are reunited after not seeing each other for months.
That you shouldn’t let your living situations or surroundings determine your outcome. Sonny's Blues shows challenges that troubled the African-American community, and how drugs troubled the young artists and kept them bound like slaves. How those living in Harlem, felt like there was no escape to the poverty that surrounded them. How a young artist was overcoming his demons, with the support of his family and living out his dream. How one has to forgive and not let the past control one’s future, nor let the surroundings of your environment determine where you will go in
As a matter of fact, the storyteller does not appreciate Sonny's motivations to play jazz music until the evening he socially joins Sonny to his stage show at a nightclub. Sitting in a dark corner at the nightclub, the storyteller listens to his brother play, considering the reminder of Sonny's friend, Creole, of what the Blues are about, "The tale, of the blues, how we live, and how we are delighted, how we suffer... and how we triumph... must be heard... it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." (Baldwin 139). For the narrator, he perceives that the Blues is the manifestation for Sonny's emotions, especially his suffering, because, as Creole would say, music is the only light in the
He sounds to blue to fly.” From these lines the listener can tell that it is a song about heartbreak and sorrow, and from a rhetorical standpoint it is clear that this is an appeal to pathos. But some may question what made Williams
"The biblical foundation of James Baldwin's 'Sonny's Blues'. " Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature, vol. 59, no. 2, 2007, p. 109 +. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com.proxy151.nclive.org/apps/doc/A161502025/LitRC?u=ncliverockcc&sid=LitRC&xid=a95f8cb0. Accessed 11 Feb.
Many of the characters in “Sonny’s Blues” face battles within themselves. The characters fight the battle of trying to keep the light shining inside and to not let the darkness inhabit them. “Images of light and darkness are used by Baldwin to illustrate his theme of man’s painful quest for an identity” (Murray
“Sonny’s Blues” is not just about Sonny's decisions and struggles but also about how they affect the narrator. This story is as much about family and brotherhood and the relationship between these two men as it is about the character of
Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin was a short story about the struggles of living in a tough, rundown neighborhood and looking to drugs as a way out. Baldwin’s intent on writing this piece focuses on pain and suffering. The author stresses that not everybody is born in the best circumstances. Sonny was one of those people who grew up in a rickety town where people often did not make it out successful.
James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” uses Sonny as an antagonist character to the protagonist, his eldest brother. While Sonny and his eldest brother both are the center of the stories content, Baldwin uses Sonny to represent a challenge to the narrator of the story. Through the rekindling of a brother’s relationships, Baldwin is able to depict Sonny's motivations and aspirations through his flaws, and the way in which his flaws affected his life. Sonny’s flaws ultimately shape Sonny’s character, his reserved feelings and silent demeanor isolate him from the world, but at the same time contribute to his aspirations and motivations by music.
In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” the author uses Sonny’s struggle for a redeemed life to push the narrator toward the realization of his own need for rescue; through this realization, the narrator can find his identity and be free from his sadness. The narrator needs rescuing from himself. He hides behind a curtain of denial trying to protect himself from emotional reality. The narrator struggles to understand when and how Sonny began his troubles with drug addiction; he does not understand where he went wrong in being a role model for his younger brother. Now, years later the narrator is a school teacher who is trying to be a role model for the young boys in his class.
In James Baldwin's short story, Sonny’s Blues, the reader should understand and visualize the historical context in order to understand the world being presented. The reader has to comprehend the harsh life of a male African-American who struggles with his dreams and drug addiction sometime around early 1957. I will discuss Baldwin's writing style, the life/value of an african american's life during this time, and the relationship between Sonny and his brother. Baldwin’s short story illustrates the hardships a person faces while searching for themselves in a world full of people or obstacles that stand in their way. Some of these obstacles are self inflicted, present from the beginning of their existence or appear as though they are random.