Comparing Self Discovery In Parker's Back And James Baldwin

Katie Jenkins
111-42
Choice #2
3 October 2013
Self-Discovery
Truly knowing who you are can be a challenge. Society can influence you to conform to what they believe you should be. This is shown in “Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor, and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin. In “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin writes, “why does he want to die? He must want to die, he’s killing himself, why does he want to die?”(61) In a sense, this is shown in Parker’s Back. The more Parker continues to live through other people, the more he continues to suffer and die inside. In Sonny’s Blues, the more Sonny tries to ignore his suffering the more he continues to do heroin and physically kill himself. The characters in these stories eventually discover
In “Parker’s Back,” Flannery O’Connor writes, “He was heavy and earnest, as ordinary as a loaf of bread[…]it did not enter his head that there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he existed.”(446) When Parker was young he lacked confidence in himself. At a fair, his whole life changed. He saw a man with tattoos. After that, he began to get tattoos and started rebelling against his mother. The tattoos gave him a new identity and introduced him to new friends and girlfriends who influenced him to rebel. His mother tried to bring him to church and turn around his life, but he fled to the Navy. By the time he got out, he had tattoos everywhere except his back. Parker had one rule, and that was to never get tattoos on his back. His tattoos were never anything meaningful. The reasoning for Parker’s tattoos was to obtain a brief moment of happiness until it subsided and he was bored again. He met a woman named Sarah Ruth Cates while trying to sell people overpriced apples. Not long after, he married her. His marriage was questionable because of their differences. Sarah was a Christian woman who hated tattoos. While Parker was a misplaced man, who didn’t even
After they died nobody really knew what to do with Sonny. His parents were gone and his brother was still enlisted in the army. Sonny was forced to live with his brother’s girlfriend’s family. Before Sonny’s brother left to the army they had a conversation about what Sonny was going to do with his life. Sonny wanted to drop out of school, learn to play the piano, and join a jazz band. His brother wasn’t really accepting of his ideas. Sonny says, “I think people ought to do what they want to do.” (Baldwin 68) Throughout their conversation, Sonny showed his eagerness to get out of Harlem and the same scenery. He was even willing to lie about his age and go to the army with his brother. Sonny was told he could play the piano if he stayed in school. He moved in with Isabel and her family, continued to go to school, and started playing the piano religiously. He played whenever time was allowed. The only thing that seemed to keep him functioning was the piano. Isabel and her family would rarely see him unless he was eating or playing the piano. One day, the family received a letter saying he hadn’t been attending school. He admitted he was going to a white girl’s apartment