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Essay / The question of equality and self-identity in "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin
In "Sonny's blue", from the narrator's point of view, fiction expresses his observations of the world and his thoughts on life by describing Sonny's experience. Furthermore, the fiction depicts two very different lives by comparing the narrator's and Sonny's different experiences and different attitudes toward life. In fiction, the narrator has chosen to compromise in order to gain the identity of the dominant society and accept the dominant social values. And through his own efforts, he lived a stable, middle-class life. However, Sonny rebelled through rebellious actions such as drug addiction, thereby gaining inner peace. At this time, the two brothers have very different outlooks on life, creating a huge difference. Through the article, we can see the process of the narrator's inner struggle, from not understanding Sonny's behavior to identifying him. In this article, I will focus on the question of whether minority people in the United States must compromise with dominant values in the process of achieving mainstream social recognition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay From the narrator's experience, we can see that even though he managed to get rid of his own neighborhood by his own efforts and experienced a stable environment- In class life, the problem of identity is always in his heart. In fiction, he is a respected college professor. In his growing community, he is one of the few who got rid of the chaotic environment and changed his own life. At the beginning of the fiction, it says: “I was afraid, afraid for Sonny. He became real again to me. A large block of ice settled in my stomach and continued to slowly melt there all day while I taught my classes algebra. (par.2) The narrator's use of "ice" implies that he has long escaped the reality of the past in which most African Americans still lived in turmoil, full of threats and suffering. The long-term stable life made him reluctant to face everything, so he froze everything like ice and placed it deep in his heart. Facing the great obstacles of poor growth environment and personal career development, he finally got rid of his growth environment through his own efforts and self-control, not only geographically, but also on a psychological level. As he described the young people on the street who look like Sonny. “Even though he was a grown man, he still hung around that block, still spent hours on street corners, was still high and ragged. I met him from time to time and he often worked. He always had a really good excuse too and I always gave it to him. I don't know why. The narrator describes and comments on this young man from the point of view of an observer. He does not consider himself a member of them. On a deeper level, he was unwilling to return to the identity he had once tried to shed. However, the news of Sonny's arrest for drug use forced him to return to the cold reality, which many young African-Americans were still struggling to live with. He realized he was one of the few African Americans who could become middle class. In fact, more African Americans will be defeated by reality and life will fall into darkness. They would penetrate to the bottom of society and live an inferior and miserable life. We can say that his compromise and obedience in order to conquer identityof the dominant society have made it successful. However, this caused the inner heart to fall into a huge contradiction. However, instead of accepting reality by obeying the dominant society, Sonny chose a completely different path than his brother when facing difficult life. He chose to fight and surpass himself. After the mother's funeral, the brothers had their first formal conversation. “What do you want to do?” I asked him. “I’m going to become a musician,” he said. "Well, you might think it's funny now, baby, but it won't be so funny when you have to make a living at it, let me tell you." I was furious because I knew he was making fun of me and I didn't know why. We can say that this communication is a conversation between an inexperienced teenager and an experienced adult. This implies the contradiction between ideal and reality. Although his narrator is very concerned about his brother, he still does not agree with Sonny's ideals. This is the first point of conflict which indicates their different attitudes towards life. It seems that Sonny is not understood by others. As the narrator's wife, Sonny, describes it: “And the sound didn't make any sense to her, didn't make any sense to any of them – naturally. They were beginning, in a way, to be distressed by this presence that lived in their home. It was like Sonny was some kind of god or monster. He was operating in an atmosphere that was not at all like theirs. He could not find anyone in life who could understand him and communicate with him. He believed that music was a hope in his life that could take him away from the miserable life and allow him to find peace in his inner mind. So he locked himself in a world of his own to express his resistance. This also implies that, in the current context, many dreams as a minority are not recognized by mainstream society. After that, Sonny experienced a lot of suffering, such as running away, joining the army, taking drugs, being arrested. This makes him more mature and allows him to understand life better. The following conversation took place after the death of the narrator's granddaughter. “When she sang before,” Sonny said abruptly, “her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin sometimes feels like, when it's in your veins. It makes you feel warm and cool and distant at the same time. What Sonny was trying to say was that he could feel this woman's pain through his singing, but the narrator thought he was just making excuses for his drug addiction. He believed that not everyone could escape suffering. So we just have to endure it and accept it. However, Sonny believed that even if people couldn't avoid suffering, we could still do our best to float above the sea instead of sinking. (par.197) From this conversation, we can see a big difference in the attitude of life between the narrator and Sonny. The narrator is a passive person, he accepts everything in life, including suffering and obstacles. A large part of the reason for his passive attitude towards life is the last conversation with his mother. When she told him that white men who had been drinking heavily had driven down the hill in a speeding car and killed his uncle. “He says he's never seen anything as dark as that road in his life after that car's headlights went out. Your dad never really got well again. Until the day he died, he wasn't sure if every white man he saw was the man who killed his brother. I'm telling you this because you have a brother. And the world hasn't changed. (par.102) His mother's words had a great impact on him. This made it more..