As his brother continues to try to understand, Sonny admits that plenty of people he has known have, in fact, shaken to pieces from heroin use. He confides that it is "repulsive" to him how much people have to suffer—even if it makes their art deepen. How do you cite Sonny's Blues? Baldwin, James. Sonny's Blues. Harlem: What is the cup of trembling?
This image is borrowed from the Bible, where the cup of trembling is used as a symbol to describe the suffering and fear that have plagued the people. The biblical passage promises a relief from that suffering, but Baldwin's use of the cup of trembling as a symbol is less overt. Is Sonny's Blues fiction or nonfiction? Baldwin continued to turn out an almost relentless series of books, both fiction and nonfiction.
The story was included in the short-story collection Going to Meet the Man Why does Sonny become an addict? Sonny becomes addicted to heroin to the point where he could barely even stand. Sonny gets to the point where he can no longer support his own weight.
What is the Epiphany in Sonny's Blues? In the nightclub, the narrator has several epiphanies about his brother and their relationship by watching him play. The civil rights movement had just burgeoned into a national struggle, and Baldwin became one of its most outspoken and eloquent advocates. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine and published another highly regarded essay collection, The Fire Next Time Baldwin reached the peak of his fame and popularity as the civil rights movement began its gradual decline, after a number of major victories and the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Baldwin continued to turn out an almost relentless series of books, both fiction and nonfiction. Racial segregation, Harlem, and the nearly overwhelming obstacles faced by young African American men raised in poverty occur again and again throughout his work.
The story was included in the short-story collection Going to Meet the Man The story, like the characters in it, literally struggles under the weight of so much pressure.
In his later years, Baldwin spent less of his time in America. In December , at age sixty-three, Baldwin died of stomach cancer at his home in the south of France. Yet as he grew older, he moved away from the influence of the church. He found himself an apartment in the artist's district of Greenwich Village, NY and then, in , in part due to the alienation he felt as a gay black man in the US, he moved to Paris.
Baldwin's literary reputation bloomed with his semi-autobiographical first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain , published in He's most famous for his works that deal with the experience of being a black man in America before the Civil Rights Movement. When "Sonny's Blues" was published in , Baldwin was already known on the literary scene. The story appeared in Partisan Review , one of America's most well-respected journals at the time.
Baldwin published it again in in his collection of short stories entitled Going to Meet the Man. The story on its own garnered a plenty of positive critical attention, but critics had very different ideas about what the story was really about. Baldwin had developed a reputation for writing about African-American causes, so was the story about race? Some thought so. Or was it about music? Or the perils of drug use? Or humanity in general? Readers saw all of this in the story.
But whatever theme critics focused on, most agreed that "Sonny's Blues" was a pretty darn remarkable piece of literature. This is probably something we can all relate to on some level. When Sonny is in high school he turns to drugs because he feels trapped in Harlem, trapped in school, and trapped by what he's supposed to do versus what he wants to do.
He's trying to find his way in the world, not quite an adult but definitely not a kid anymore.
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