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Theme Of Darkness In Sonny Blues

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When we talk about darkness, it can have many different meanings. For example, darkness can mean shadow, sadness, wickedness, evil, iniquity, gloom, or without light. As we read the novel Sonny Blues by James Baldwin, the word “darkness” appeared frequently throughout the reading. I think the significant of darkness for this particular situation of this book is fear and suffering. It shows how the characters are shocked and are in the state of panic fearing of the situation they are in and all the sufferings they have to go through. The first appearance of the term began on page 413 where the narrative saw in the news that Sonny got locked in prison. “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside”(413). This quote shows that the term darkness is represented as fear for the narrator. He was in a panic of fear because out of all the people in the whole wide world, he thinks to himself why, does it had to be his brother and He just couldn’t accept the fact that Sonny was in put in prison. Fear was also portrayed through the narrator by the term darkness in his childhood after the church meetings. “The silence, the darkness coming and the darkness in the face frightens the child obscurely. He hopes that the hand which …show more content…

By growing up with not just losing his father, but also his mother, Sonny faced many adversaries. By unable to fight off his hardships, he attempted to create a way to escape from his sufferings by using heroin and engaging in criminal activities. Sonny argues that all human beings, including the narrator, must suffer and each has his own ways to survive and Sonny’s thinks his was drugs. In the end he ended up in prison. After getting out of prison, he attempted to change his life through music which was his dream; to become a

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