What Is The Thesis Of Sonny's Blues Annotated

Introduction “They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art”. – Charlie Parker. During the Harlem Renaissance people weren’t just making music, they were creating a new way of life, a brand-new culture. Sonny’s Blues is based in Harlem in the 1950’s during the Harlem Renaissance. This was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural center in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. The period is considered a golden age in African American culture, making literature, music, stage performance and art. In "Sonny's Blues," James Baldwin portrays Sonny's redemption from rock bottom in Harlem in the 1950's using vivid imagery

When the narrator talks with one of Sonny's friends "Maybe he'll even think he's kicked the habit. Then they'll let him loose"" You mean he will never kick the habit"(125-126). He got addicted to the drug and there is no recovery. He will always want to return because of the feeling and the relief of pain when he is not high. Transition "They'll send him away some place and they'll try to cure him" (125). His battle eventually leads him to jail but there is nobody to help him he is all alone. His struggle leads him down a very steep and hard slope Body paragraph

Transition "Then we had a fight, a pretty awful fight, and I didn’t see him for months…So I got mad and then he got mad, and then I told him that he might just as well be dead as live the way he was living" (139). The fighting drives them apart and causes a positive influence in his life to no longer be a part of his life. Driving Sonny into this deep hole that he later tries so hard to climb out of. Transition "I found myself wandering aimlessly about the living room, drinking from a can of beer, and trying to work up the courage to search Sonny's room" (139). This is showing the lack of trust between the narrator and his brother. He is scared what he might find or not find and doesn’t know what to