I have just finished reading the story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. I found this story really hard to analyze after the first time I read it. The language that he wrote it in was kind of hard for me to understand the first time but after a second read through I began to comprehend more and more of what he was writing. I still found certain aspects of this story hard to analyze however.
The one thing i noticed about this story is how different the ending was from the beginning. It was different from other stories however because when I was done reading it, it just seemed like a completely different story. It was an aspect that I found very interesting in this story.
The main character in this story is never named which is a fact that I really enjoyed about it. this is similar to a movie "Fight Club" where the main character is referred to throughout most of the movie simply as "The Narrator". Anyway, the narrator in this story changes a lot from his introduction. Just like in the story "Cathedral" the changes that are made in his character are pretty sudden. Throughout the entire story he is trying to protect his brother from drugs and thinks that he is fighting a losing battle the entire time until he realizes at the end that his brother is so much more than he thought. I really liked this about this story. It was a pretty big shift in the story as well.
There are several different moods that are in this story as well. While reading this story i felt differently about every page. It started out as a pretty depressing mood and then went into a very mellow laid back mood and then went into a kind of awkward angry mood and ended in a pretyty happy mood. it took the course of a typical drama sort of movie. I thought this choice was very interesting.
The way that the narrator tells this story through many different flash backs is a kind of interesting method as well. I think that the end of the story might not have had as much feeling because this way you knew how the narrator felt about his younger brother in the present even after their complicated past, and then to have his views changed suddenly made the ending a lot more effective. If he had used the linear traditional style than it might not have felt like much. This is also becoming a really popular style to do movies in.
This story was a very interesting read. It used some styles that i had never read in stories before and it was a new reading experience for me. I can really learn a lot from this story and i think it was a very interesting read.
7 comments:
Hey john. I really enjoyed this story, i agree that it was unlike any other story that we have read. The writing and the topic is different. We have read stories on families, but this family story is very different. It is also different in the fact that he jumps back and forth from one time to another. We're in the present then BAM its the past, then back to the present then BAM to another part of the past. I also liked the fact that we never found out the main characters name, we knew the brothers name, the wifes name, the dead daughters name, but we never found out the main characters name. I did name him though, i named him leroy. It seemed to go nicely with sonny, they both seem to be in that jazz era. And i love the name leroy.
Over all i have to say that this was one of my favorite stories we have read so far.
It's interesting how you realted this story to movies. I have never seen "Fight Club" so I can't related to that but and I also wasnt able to see how the emotional roller coaster ride this story took our feelings on. I think it's cool that you were able to see it in this way. I didn't find this story very interesting at all.
Yo! I really liked that you talked about the change in the main character. It is really sudden, which makes me wonder if that is the way that most changes are in real life. He has an epiphany kind of. It is so sweet that he finally realizes that Sonny isnt this failure that is a lost cause. But that's kind of the attitude the main character has through the whole story....good attitude, no? I couldnt help but feel sorry for him because he was isolating himself from everyone, but then Sonny changed his mind. Ah the wonders of siblings
John!
I agree with almost everything you wrote about Sonnys Blues. I like how you made references to movies and other stories we have read. That shows me that you really think about what the story is saying. I also liked how he told the sotry through flash backs, it helped me in a way to more understand the characters and what they are going through
I agree with what you said bout the narrator. It's funny cause I felt the same emotional change myself while reading. Like before I got to the end, I thought that Sonny was going to die or something. I also think that the narrator confused me when he kept going back and forth with the settings. But overall it was indeed a very interesting story.
John, I love what you have to say about how the story takes you in so many directions. first, you are dark, then your smooth. I like how you brought that up because i wanted to say something like that in my blog but i couldn't think of how to put it. It reminds me of a jazz band. you know how jazz has that call-and-reponse thing going on. and how it can speed up, slow down, and take a completely different course all in one song. and how songs can last forever. that is what i thoought of you made a great point.
You always have a movie to compare something to. Even though I've never seen that movie that sound pretty funny and interesting. I liked how he used flashback it showed up the past where they were coming from and allowed us to better understand where they would be going in the future.
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