In one or two sentences, make an interpretive claim about "Sonny's Blues." (If you'd like to look over the previous blog comments first, go ahead.) Then list three pieces of evidence for your claim. These pieces of evidence could be quotations, or they could by phrases of your own about the text. The pieces of evidence don't have to be complete sentences. If you quote, write the quotation out in full. If the quotation seems too long, it probably is; just use part of it.
If someone else has taken your claim, you must come up with your own new examples.
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19 comments:
Hey
So here's my claim:
Music has the power to move people into a different state of mind, resulting in everlasting reflection and thought.
Here are my 3 supporting details to my claim.
-They began, in a way, to be afflicted by this presence that was living in their home. It was as though Sonny were some sort of god, or monster. He moved in an atmosphere which wasn't like theirs at all. They fed him and he ate, he washed himself, he walked in and out of their door; he certainly wasn't nasty or unpleasant or rude, Sonny isn't any of those things; but it was as thoughy he were all wrapped up in some cloud, some fire, some vision all his own; and there wasn't any way to reach him. Pg. 95, pa.170
-Then he began to make it his own. It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, and what burning he had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if he would listen, that he could never be free until we did. Pg. 104, pa.240.
-I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.
Thank you
Mason
Hey Everyone,
Here is my claim: Sonny chooses to see beyond the struggles of holding his feelings or emotions within him and instead finds a way of letting loose and expressing his feelings freely.
My three pieces of evidence are:
1. He plays the piano at Isabel's house non-stop working for perfection and just playing and playing his blues music.
2. He misses school in order to go play his music (I am pretty sure he was going with Creole to practice rather than going to class)
3. When he plays and his brother is there watching him, Sonny's brother really can tell how much Sonny enjoys playing music and how it allows him to let loose and just let everything go. No one is judging him, he is just free to play whatever he feels without thinking about it.
Hello!! :) In the story, Sonny's Blues, the author is suggesting that trust is impossible; one cannot fully trust himself, his family, or any other element of his life and must find other ways to survive in a world so full of pain and hardship.
My 3 pieces of evidence are as follows:
1) Sonny's drug use. He says on page 101 that he ran away from Harlem to get away from the drugs, but he found that when he returned, he had not changed. He went right back into using them. He could not trust himself around drugs, and he could not trust himself to change.
2) The narrator's mother asked him to watch out for Sonny when she dies, and he promised he would. However, he wasn't very loyal to that promise and let Sonny go down a bad path. He momentarily saved him by sending him to Isabel's, but that eventually fell through too. The narrator even recognized the fact that he was not good at keeping that promise, when he says that he prayed to be able to keep the promise this time. (This is on page 100, around lines 217 to 220.) Sonny and their mother could not trust the narrator to faithfully and successfully watch out for Sonny.
3) When Grace, the narrator's daughter, dies, the narrator is shown that he can't even trust fate. He never thought that would happen-- nobody ever thinks their daughter will die. It did happen, however, and the narrator learned that there are never any guarantees and you can't trust life to give you what you expect or what you want.
The theme of hardships and struggles is apparent throughout the story, and those 3 pieces of evidence prove that trust is not an effective way to handle those hardships (at least in this story... I'm not saying this is true is all cases. Trust can certainly be a good thing.)
Have a good day!! :)
Hello,
My claim: Though the narrator and his brother Sonny are reunited when Sonny is released from jail, the narrator never develops a fully understanding of Sonny until Sonny plays his music.
I am going to do the evidence later but I just wanted to put my claim out there just in case.
Evidence is coming..
Thanks!
Hey everyone,
My claim:
Music is the key to happiness. Finding the door is the challenging part.
1. "Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played." Sonny is their key and he is also their outlet where they can come and
let all of their emotions out.
2. "I think I may have written Sonny the very day that little Grace was buried." People need their inspirations when tough times arise. Also, when there inspirations are no where to be found they try to find other outlets.
3. " 'I don't,' said Sonny, with dignity, 'make any difference to me. I don't care what you listen to. Don't do me no favors.' " Also trying to make one's "key" happy also backfires at times. As seen here. Caring about what your inspiration thinks is usually the death to all good open doors.
I look forward to reading everyone else's and Mason, Kacie, Julia, and Ashleigh, your claims and evidence (so far) are very good. I really enjoyed reading them!
Hope you all like mine, or at least have something to dispute about it.
Thank you!
To appreciate life and live fully, one has to experience the hardships and not take anything for granted. By asking questions and taking a back seat in situations, one may never realize that the answer lies in the question.
1. The narrator writes a letter to Sonny, but only after his daughter died and he experienced the aching pain of loosing someone. He took action with what he knew he should have done when Sonny first went to prison, yet he waited until the death to make a move.
2. Sonny was in prison, and did not experience the freedom to express yourself. Once he felt that, and knew he never wanted to again, he started skipping school to play jazz music. He took action into what he was truly feeling.
3. The narrator really takes in Sonny when he is playing and he appreciates the music. Partly because their relationship has grown stronger. However, he is putting himself on the line, as Sonny is aswell, they are both putting everything on the table emotionally and that is how the narrator is able to have a revelation without judgements.
Human beings have the tendency to attempt to avoid life's hardships by channeling their sufferings into outlets that take them away from their problems.
"Yet it had happened and here I was, talking about algebra to a lot of boys who might, every one of them for all I knew, be popping off needles every time they went to the head."
"Years ago, when he was around fourteen, he'd been all hipped on the idea of going to India."
"...but it was as though he were all wrapped up in some could, some fire, some vision all his own; and there wasn't any way to reach him."
All of these quotations are examples of places to escape to in order to avoid the problems and sufferings that life presents. The first example is turning to drugs to mentally remove oneself from this world and all of the troubles that come with it. When one is high the only thing they have to worry about is where their brain is taking them and they can forget about the real suffering that is in their lives. The second example shows the tendency to want to escape life's hardships by simply fleeing from the location that the problems are presented in. Sonny chooses India because it is so unlike the life he knows that he feels he can get out of the cycle of hardship that harlem presents The third example shows the fact that Sonny is trying to escape the difficulties of life by turning to music to take him from this world. Music can remove one from the problems at hand and they can channel their energy into a positive goal and forget about their surroundings. Each of these examples portray the need to escape life's inevitable problems through drugs, escaping, and art.
Ignorance keeps people from experiencing different ways of life, such as music.
-1.) "I frowned. I'd never played the role of the oldest brother quite so seriously before, had
scarcely ever, in fact, asked Sonny a damn thing. I sensed myself in the presence of
something I didn't really know how to handle, didn't understand. So I made my frown a little
deeper as I asked: "What kind of musician do you want to be?" "
The narrator doesn't know about music and because he didn't understand it, he was ignorant about it. Ignorance is almost always derived from the lack of knowledge about something.
-2.) " I just looked at him and I was probably frowning a real frown by this time. I
simply couldn't see why on earth he'd want to spend his time hanging around nightclubs,
clowning around on bandstands, while people pushed each other around a dance floor. It
seemed-beneath him, somehow. "
The narrator thinks that education is the only way to be successful in life. He's only looking out for Sonny. Just because the narrator doesn't find interest in it, he thinks Sonny should think the same as him.
-3.) "I was beginning to realize that I'd never seen him so upset before. With another part of my
mind I was thinking that this would probably turn out to be one of those things kids go
through and that I shouldn't make it seem important by pushing it too hard. Still, I didn't
think it would do any harm to ask: "Doesn't all this take a lot of time? Can you make a living
at it?" "
My claim: In the book "Sonny's Blues" listening to music brings back memories of the past and past loved ones.
1)I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise.(Pg.104)
2)For he also had to see that his presence, that music, which was life or death to him, had been torture for them and that they had endured it, not at all for his sake, but only for mine.
3. "When she was singing before," said Sonny, abruptly, "Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes-when it's in your veins." (Pg. 99)
Hi, please disregard my earlier post; I changed my claim.
My claim: The narrator doesn't gain understanding of Sonny until Sonny comes from jail and they begin to speak again.
"Isabel finally confessed that it wasn't like living with a person at all, it was like living with sound. And the sound didn't make any sense to her, didn't make any sense to any of them-naturally...It as as though Sonny were some sort of god, or monster... it was as though he were all wrapped up in some cloud, some fire, some vision all his own; and there wasn't any way to reach him" (Pg. 95). Though this does not relate directly to the narrator, the language used indicates that he himself did not understand Sonny any better than Isabel. It indicates that no one really had an understanding for him because he lived in his own world where music and later, drugs, consumed him.
"'It can come again,' he said, almost as though speaking to himself... "All right...I understand that"' (Pg. 101). This is Sonny and the narrator talking about drugs, and it's here that they achieve a mutual understanding about drugs, even if it is not the "solution" the narrator or the reader might have been looking for. It is a turning point and this makes it important.
"All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations...Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did" (104). This passage is definitely about the narrator and his journey to understanding Sonny, through the music.
Thanks!
How is everyone,
I have tried not to read any of the other claims people have made. I only read Mason's, he was at the top of the page. My claim is:
Sonny, a young man confused on where to go, finds music to be a way to explain himself to other people, more importantly, himself.
The story makes clear suggestions that Sonny is on the wrong path. When he lives with the narrator he is said to almost just be wind in the atmosphere. He does nothing but play the piano. In my opinion Sonny chooses the piano to build a friendship with rather than a person because music will never let him down. People often turn to drugs, such as Sonny, because the people in their lives do not supply their minds with enough satisfaction. Sonny feels music is the only way to satisfy him and express himself. By begining to learn how to express himself he can then start learning to express himself to others. Music helps him learn about himself, that is why he loves it so much, he doesnt know who he really is yet.
How is everyone,
I have tried not to read any of the other claims people have made. I only read Mason's, he was at the top of the page. My claim is:
Sonny, a young man confused on where to go, finds music to be a way to explain himself to other people, more importantly, himself.
The story makes clear suggestions that Sonny is on the wrong path. When he lives with the narrator he is said to almost just be wind in the atmosphere. He does nothing but play the piano. In my opinion Sonny chooses the piano to build a friendship with rather than a person because music will never let him down. People often turn to drugs, such as Sonny, because the people in their lives do not supply their minds with enough satisfaction. Sonny feels music is the only way to satisfy him and express himself. By begining to learn how to express himself he can then start learning to express himself to others. Music helps him learn about himself, that is why he loves it so much, he doesnt know who he really is yet.
The world contains many evils that people struggle to avoid on a daily basis. It is when people stop the struggle and just be that the evil fades away.
1) "But houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated the landscape, boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves encircled by disaster. Some escaped the trap, most didn't. Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg and leave it in the trap." pg 87.
2) "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth." pg 104.
3) " I couldn't tell you when Mama died --but the reason I wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from drugs. And then, when I ran away, that's what I was running from --really. When I came back, nothing had changed, I hadn't changed, I was just --older." And he stopped, drumming with his fingers on the windowpane. The sun had vanished, soon darkness would fall. I watched his face. "It can come again," he said, almost as though speaking to himself. Then he turned to me. "It can come again," he repeated. "I just want you to know that." pg 101/
My claim is that- The sucess of one man can not be achieved by the actions of another.
I have more than three examples- but I will say that in every relationship the narrator talks about, whether it be relationships with family or just relationships with strangers. You can tell that he is observing others being weak, vulnerable, but is unwilling to open up himself.
Hey guys,
I have struggled thinking of a claim that can provide a lot of evidence. Music promises Sonny freedom. Through music Sonny has the power to reveal his troubled past and express himself freely. I feel as though this claim is supported by many examples in the text.
".....he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth." Right here creole is clearly supporting my claim. She says that sonny will never be free from his past until his audience listents to his story through his music. She can hear Sonnys story of his troubled life through his music
"Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes when its in your veins." He is constantly being reminded of his past, yet he cannot express it through his mouth. Thus he displays it in his jazz solos.
Clearly music assists sonny, by giving him the power to set his dark soul free by telling his story. Although he cannot tell his story through words, his piano playing is just as effective if not even more so.
Hakuna Matata,
Claim: Art lets the pain and degradation of the world slip away from us and frees us of their chains.
1) Sonny's cocaine/drug addiction - When he plays his music he says he is able to let himself truly be free in a way that he was unable to with drugs. This shows that art, or for Sonny music, is the key to unshackling the bonds that hold us/root us in the pains of the "real world".
2) "They all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played" - This is a perfect example of how music is what is able to let the struggles of the real world be lifted from us.
3) Sonny skips school to play music - He is truly free when he is doing as he wants to do and not when he is bound to the system's cultural expectations.
The narrator did not understand what Sonny was trying to achieve until the end of the story.
1) “This was because I had begun, finally, to wonder about Sonny, about the life tat Sonny lived inside. This life, whatever it was, had made him older and thinner and it had deepened the distant stillness in which he had always moved. He looked very unlike my baby brother (pg. 86).
2) “I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t. I wanted to talk about will power and how life could be-well, beautiful. I wanted to say that it was all within; but was it? Or, rather, wasn’t that exactly the trouble? And I wanted to promise that I would never fail him again. But it would all have sounded empty words and lies.” (pg. 100)
3) “I had never before though of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument…Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his; that long line of which we knew only Mama and Daddy. And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death, it can live forever.” (pg. 103-104)
Claim;
People are still capable of love in the worst circumstances; all you have to do is open up to them. If two people can open up and reveal themselves, great things can be achieved and both can be enlightened.
evidence:
At first Sonny's brother was shut out by Sonny and did not try to contact him until his daughter died. When his brother realized what pain and suffering was and began to understand Sonny, he contacted him and it did Sonny well.
Once the narrator told Sonny about his loss he was able to begin moving on. When he confronted Sonny about how he was going to make money, he learned about Sonny's talent and after hearing him play- was convinced he could make it on his own.
This turn around for Sonny from finding something he enjoyed and practiced hard at could get him away from the depressing life he once led. Also, his brother was effected by this in a positive way because it allowed him to stop worrying about Sonny and even feel proud and moved by him.
In this way, the narrator enlightened Sonny when he contacted him to tell him he still cares and shared his grief with him. Also, Sonny's talent and incredible music deeply effected his brother and he was enlightened by the experience of watching his brother overcome the worst of his suffering.
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