Pain And Suffering In Sonny's Blues

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Sonny's Blues Pain and suffering are feelings that most people experience at some point through the time in their life. “Sonny’s Blues’ is a story of two African American brothers growing up in the ghetto of Harlem in post-World War II New York. The narrator describes their projects as “rocks in the middle of a boiling sea”, their own safe haven in Harlem. Both brothers are faced with many obstacles through their lives, each dealing with those struggles in extremely dissimilar fashions. The narrator is a high school algebra teacher making an attempt to be a model citizen living out the “American Dream” with his wife and their children. The narrator bought into the establishment, is veteran of the US Army, and gives out the perception that his life is in order and he has this act together. On the flipside, the narrator’s brother Sonny is a veteran of the Navy, but being veterans is all they seem to have in common. Sonny has lived his life numbing his the pain that causes him anguishes by wrapping himself in soothing blanket of heroin, using sweet China White to aid his music performances, evading the demons that continually haunted him. By comparison the narrator and Sonny’s initially appear to be very different in their ways. The narrator is an example productive member of society, while…show more content…
Seven years senior to Sonny, the narrator helped raise his brother through his youth. When on reflecting his childhood years, the narrator has many fond memories with Sonny but doesn’t divulge with specifics. It is clear to see by how the narrator speaks of Sonny, the narrator cares a great deal about him. When the narrator read the headlines projecting his brother’s name, it flipped his world upside down. Through the narrator’s life he’d certainly meant to keep Sonny’s best interest in mind, hadn’t he? He even promised never to forget about Sonny when his mother said to

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