Preview

Sonny's Blues Rhetorical Analysis

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
443 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sonny's Blues Rhetorical Analysis
Chelsea Culberson
Instructor Jacob Kruse
Communications I
15 September 2014
Sonny’s Blues
“Sonny’s Blues” is a story of disorientation at first; it tells a story of a young man named Sonny and his older brother who is the narrator. Sonny is a young boy who in fact grew up in a world of abandonment. He suffered from drug addiction, being a school dropout, and personal desertion issues. As the story unfolds from his brother’s point of view, it explains how the older brother wished he had been there for his brother throughout his hard time of growing up. The older brother puts forth the effort to lead Sonny into the right direction by welcoming him into his home and pushing to be a better man. Sonny refuses to follow the guidance and turns his
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Comparing Sonny's Blues 'And The Things They Carried'
    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Comparing Sonny's Blues 'And The Things They Carried'

    The Characters In “Sonny’s blues” represent a wide range about human nature. For example, Sonny is a character with very non serious sense of humor and he is drug addict his brother (narrator) is character with good sense of humor and he was not drug addict. Sonny is the musician But he cared mostly about himself and not about the nation but narrator he cared about the nation and place where he was more then just himself. Furthermore most of the other people in Harlem were drug addicts and had no reason to live, this is the reason why Sonny wanted to leave Harlem just…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    An Analysis Of Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin
    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages

    An Analysis Of Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

    James Baldwin’s short story, Sonny’s Blues, is a story about the narrator’s younger brother, Sonny, who has been in trouble with selling and using heroin, and how the narrator deals with it. Throughout the story, the author uses music and imprisonment as motifs. He also uses rage and fury as a common theme. Blues music, which is characterized as a template of chords with lyrics reflecting sadness and usually pertaining to African Americans, is very similar to Sonny’s Blues. Baldwin uses these motifs and themes to shape the story similar to the musical structure of blues.…

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    A Literary Analysis Of Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin
    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A Literary Analysis Of Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

    The story “Sonny’s Blues” was written by James Baldwin in 1957. The story is narrated by Sonny’s elder brother, however the narrator’s name is never mentioned in the entire text. The story revolves around two African American brothers from New York who were trying to understand one another on an emotional level. The younger brother Sonny is a musician, who gets subjugated with heroin abuse in the beginning of the story. However, Sonny’s elder brother, the last remaining member of his family, worries and bring Sonny into his home after he finished his period of rehabilitation. The elder brother reminds himself of the promise he made to his mother to protect Sonny before her untimely demise. Further creating a sense of responsibility of the elder brother towards the younger, due to the past insecurities caused by Sonny; his elder brother pondered about his goals and ambitions. However he finally understands what Sonny is capable off musically…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin: Literary Analysis
    • 1653 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin: Literary Analysis

    “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is about two brothers, Sonny and the unnamed narrator. The story chronicles a part of their lives. It begins with Sonny’s drug arrest. The tale then travels back to Sonny’s teenage years and ends up with Sonny living with his brother after his arrest. The story uses imagery throughout the tale. One of the most used is that of the contrast of light and darkness. This becomes the theme of the story. Even though Sonny has struggled with a drug problem and arrest readers may wonder who is in more darkness.…

    • 1653 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Biblical Elements In James Baldwin's Biblical Literary Work
    • 1496 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Biblical Elements In James Baldwin's Biblical Literary Work

    First, the death of his baby girl Grace which lead to the greetings by letter to his younger sibling whom he seemed to fail. Second, his failure to fulfill his mother’s request on her death bed, as he so graciously promised to care for his brother.Sonny on the other hand, after being released from prison wants to be set free from the life he chose earlier in his life. That is drugs, addictions, and his love for prison bars. Later on in the story, both brothers received the salvation they sought after.…

    • 1496 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Scarlet Letter Rhetorical Analysis
    • 1390 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter Rhetorical Analysis

    I chose this word because the tone of the first chapter seems rather dark. We hear stories of the hopes with which the Puritans arrived in the new world; however, these hopes quickly turned dark because the Puritans found that the first buildings they needed to create were a prison, which alludes to the sins they committed; and a cemetery, which contradicts the new life they hoped to create for themselves.…

    • 1390 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sonny's Blues Narrator
    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Sonny's Blues Narrator

    “Sonny’s Blues,” is a story written in the first-person point of view. The story opens up with the narrator find out his younger brother Sonny being held in prison due to the use and sale of heroine. Thorough the day the narrator can’t seem to focus on his day due to the awful news he read about his brother. He then speaks to one of his brother’s friend that lets him know how difficult Sonny’s life has been due to his drug addiction and how it will continue to be. Time passes by, but the narrator never reaches out to his brother in prison until his daughter, Grace, dies. Sonny then replies back making a constant communication with one another, later then taking Sonny to his house after his jail release. The narrator suddenly has a flashback…

    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sonny's Blues Limitations
    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sonny's Blues Limitations

    In summary it is a boy, having already witnessed the tuberculosis-related deaths of his aunt and uncle, is furious at God when his father suffered sunstroke while out in the fields. When the boy’s brother is hit by over working in the sun he collapses while working, the boy curses God. To his astonishment, the earth does not engulf him. In Sonny’s Blues Sonny's brother finds out from an article that his younger brother, Sonny, has been apprehended for heroin. As he prepares to teach his math class, thinking about Sonny as a young boy. His students, he now understands, they could someday end up like Sonny, given the trials and tribulation they face growing up in Harlem. At the end of the school , the narrator moves towards home, but he sees that one of Sonny’s old friends, who is always on drugs and dirty, is standing there for him by the school. They walk together, talking about…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Sonny Blues By James Baldwin
    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analysis Of Sonny Blues By James Baldwin

    In the story “Sonny Blues by James Baldwin, displays the central conflict between two brothers who becomes estrangement due to several differences. The narrator feels obligated to look after his younger brother Sonny from the heroin incident and believes that Jazz music is a waste of his time. However, Sonny feels withdrawn from his older brother as he is unable to understand his feeling towards music. Sonny wants to express control of his life and use music as a way to talk about his suffering which most people do not often get to do because they keep their feelings inside. Baldwin states that they “were keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the table…

    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Of Sonny's Blues
    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Theme Of Sonny's Blues

    The plot of Sonny’s Blues is structured to deliver the theme of the story which is the obligatory love of the narrator toward his brother Sonny, growing up as an African American in the poverty and despair of Harlem. Also, it highlights the salvation they desire in themselves and with each other. The plot encompasses the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and the conclusion to achieve the message of the story.…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sonny Blues essay
    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sonny Blues essay

    "Sonny's Blues" opens as the narrator learns from a newspaper that his younger brother, Sonny, has been arrested for dealing heroin. The narrator is taking the subway to his high-school teaching job. At the end of the school day, the "insular and mocking" laughter of his students reminds him that as youths he and Sonny had been filled with rage and had known "two darkness’s"—the one of their lives and the one of the movies that made them momentarily forget about their lives. Leaving the school, the narrator comes across an old friend of Sonny's in the schoolyard.…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sonny's Blues
    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sonny's Blues

    We will first look at the obvious characteristic of the use of music. The main character of “Sonny’s Blues” is Sonny, a jazz pianist and heroin addict. Sonny uses…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Brotherhood
    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Brotherhood

    In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” the unspoken brotherly bond between the narrator and his younger brother Sonny is demonstrated through the narrator’s point of view. The two brothers have not spoken in years until the narrator receives a letter from Sonny after his daughter dies. He takes this moment as an important sign from Sonny, feeling the need to respond. While both Sonny and the narrator live in separate worlds, all Sonny needs is a brother to care for him while the narrator finds himself in the past eventually learning his role as an older brother.…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Light And Darkness
    • 1631 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Light And Darkness

    As the sun rises, birds begin to sing the joy of light and as the day ends, the birds fly back into the darkness of night. The darkness of our lives is often transformed by the delusion of light. In James Baldwin's essay, "Sonny's Blues,"� the title itself sets up an irony that is explored throughout. The name "Sonny," when read, sounds like "Sunny," meaning brightness, light and hope. The word "Blues" presents the reader images of night, darkness and sadness. The darkness represents the reality of life on the streets of Harlem, a community living in an environment where there is no escape from the reality of drugs and crime. The dreadful nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a means of escaping the darkness of their lives. The main character, Sonny, a struggling Jazz musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing creativity and artistic ability within him. Using music as a means of creating structure in his life, Sonny attempts to step into the light, a life without drugs. Coping with the light and darkness of siblings can be one of life's most exhausting challenges as they grow-up and struggle to form their own identities.…

    • 1631 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sonny S Blues
    • 135 Words
    • 1 Page

    Sonny S Blues

    “Sonny’s Blues” takes place in Harlem, New York during the early 50’s. The narrator depicts the place (Harlem) to be a very bleak place with people suffering from poverty and drugs. The time spent by the narrator in the military also helped establish his identity and gain respect from the people around him. The use of darkness is also very significant because of how darkness suggests violence, suffering and pain. The nightclub that Sonny played in, although a very dark and smoky room was a place of solitude for Sonny. A place where he could just forget about his problems and do what he loved best.…

    • 135 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More