Close Reading Essay Sample: Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin

#1. A shortened version of this story will focus on the life of Sonny, his addiction to drugs and the lessons the reader ought to learn from it. A summary will tend to be straightforward and not move back and forth as the main story.

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#2. The central idea about Sonny's Blues is redemption. The story takes the reader through pain, suffering, alienation, and anger of the main character.

#3. The narrator insinuates that "It's only light we've got in all this darkness (Baldwin 139)." The light is a sign of redemption at the end of the sufferings.

#4. The most important ideas in the story are family, home, suffering, and drugs.

#5. In order of importance, the ideas are family, home, suffering, and drugs.

#6. The ideas that the author suggests without stating are suffering and irony.

#7. The information in Sonny's Blues is not organized as the narrator takes the reader back and forth in the story.

#8. Sonny's Blues presents a fiction genre.

#9. The narrator chooses to voice of reason throughout the story. He tries to make Sonny think of his future while acting as a fatherly figure to him.

#10. Sonny's Blues was written in the first person point of view, who is Sonny's brother.

#11. The sources of information in Sonny's Blues are the narrator, Sonny, Sonny's friend, Isabel, Isabel's parents, Grace, the narrator's mother and father.

#12. Sonny's Blues makes use of symbolism such as jazz and blues music, imagery such as ice and allegory.

#13. The story makes use of poetic style, sympathetic but honest tone, and mood

#14. The author of Sonny's Blues uses irony in the story.

#15. The central idea of Sonny's Blue is redemption. It brings to the attention of the reader that no matter what one goes through, there is always hope.

#16. The author supports the idea of redemption right from the beginning of the story. The reader is taken through the pain, suffering, alienation, and anger that Sonny had to go through. The narrator gets lost and disconnects from the family at the beginning. However, as the story progresses, the death of grace enables the narrator to come in touch with reality, which prompts him to contact his brother setting the journey to the path of redemption.

#17. The author is positive towards the idea of redemption as he believes that there is light in the darkness they were facing.

#18. The author makes use of the stylistic devices such as mood, style, and tone to bring out the main theme and main idea of the story.

#19. The author chooses this method of presentation to bring out the main idea of the story.

#20. The concepts that make the reasoning possible in Sonny's Blues is the family and the desire of the narrator to make Sonny see sense in whatever he is telling him. The assumption is that Sonny was going to get whatever he was being told and as a result would be redeemed from all that he was going through.

#21. The author wants the reader to believe that every individual can be redeemed and that the suffering that individuals undergo does not always last.

#22. The information collected is relevant as there exist relevant sources with a plethora of analysis done of the story with credible authors.

#23. The existing sources represent every character and ideas of the story required by the reader to understand the story.

#23. The story is a reminder that no matter what difficult situation I might be facing at this given time, there is always hope of redemption.

#24. The story of Sonny is similar to my life in the aspects of family relations aspect. I had troubles with my family sometime back.

#25. However, the story is different from my life in the aspect of the drug peddling and imprisonment of Sonny.

#26. I have never been into prison. Thus, I have never experienced such.

#27. The imprisonment aspect of Sonny does not, therefore, relate to my life.

#30. The story was a great revelation to me on the importance of family and home.

#31. The story is relevant to the world today as many of the youths go through the same situation as that of Sonny.

#32. The story reminds me of the life of Mabel from The Horse Dealer's Daughter who went through the same suffering after losing her father.

#33. The text is similar to various good reads as they always give hope to the hopeless.

#34. The story is different from other books as some of the books often straightforward and does not implement the idea of going back and forth to bring the main idea of the story.

#35. Yes, I have read The Horse Dealer's Daughter which is also a good read, just like Sonny's Blue. The Horse Dealer's Daughter is a story of Mabel Pervin, who is 27 years of age and unmarried (Lawrence 1). The father dealt with horses before his death. The death of the father became a revelation to Mabel, and her three brothers of how deep their family was in debt. The news doesn't go well with Mabel resulting in an attempted suicide.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. Sonny's blues. Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2009.

Lawrence, David Herbert. The Horse-Dealer's Daughter. Booklassic, 2015.