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Imagery and Conflict in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” Short Story Essay

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Introduction

Sonny’s Blues, a short story by James Baldwin, follows the path of the narrator and his brother in Harlem. Although the story’s name refers to Sonny, the narrator’s brother, it is still a deep revelation of the latter’s emotions and experiences. Baldwin’s work illustrates how one can face a dilemma and struggle when thinking about the best thing to do. In the excerpt, the narrator translates the emotions through imagery, emphasizing his stress and anxiety and later showing the internal and external conflict connected to Sonny and his friend.

Main Body

To show the readers the true experiences of the narrator, the writer uses imagery, which helps translate the feelings. The first type of imagery Baldwin uses is tactile, which helps translate the emotions of anxiety and stress. As the man confesses, upon learning about his brother’s situation, “a great block of ice got settled in [his] belly and kept melting there slowly all day long” (Baldwin 1). The narrator does not stop and emphasizes the feeling by claiming that it “kept melting, sending trickles of ice water all up and down [his] veins, but it never got less” (Baldwin 1). Such imagery helps the reader understand the long-lasting effect on the hero and how it made him almost completely disassociate from reality and experience genuine physical pain.

Moreover, the narrator includes tactile feelings of wetness and sweat. According to the man, his clothes were wet, and “he may have looked as though I’d been sitting in a steam bath, all dressed up, all afternoon” (Baldwin 1). On the one hand, it indeed can indicate that the man sweated due to stuffy and hot air. On the other hand, it illustrates that the hero was stressed and uncomfortable, with his thoughts being occupied by his brother’s predicament. Such discomfort is translated to the readers through a description of feelings.

Visual imagery is also present throughout the excerpt. When reading the story, the reader can notice that the narrator includes words such as brightness or darkness, as if referring to good or evil. For instance, when speaking about his students and the neighborhood where he lives, he describes everything with the presence of dark features. As the man emphasized, “the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness” (Baldwin 1). The man focuses on the fact that many of his students are doomed for failure in life, and due to a lack of opportunities and hopes, they will most likely become addicted to drugs.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the narrator tries to keep his distance from his brother’s friend. It can be claimed that there is a good reason for this. The narrator wanted to separate himself from such a life in Harlem. In the neighborhood, he can be seen as a relatively successful man. He had a job as an algebra teacher, had no issues with the authorities, and had no addictions. Therefore, from one perspective, one can think that the main character wanted to feel safe and not let this darkness engulf him.

However, from another perspective, the narrator wants to hate Sonny’s friend and not think of his brother because he cannot emotionally handle such pain. The author confessed in the beginning that he “told [himself] that Sonny was wild, but he wasn’t crazy” (Baldwin 1). This proves that the narrator does not want to feel pain for his sibling and does not want to feel bad for the person Sonny knows, who would most likely follow the same path. As the man later tells this friend, he does not want to hear his story, but he feels “guilty, probably, for never having supposed that he had a story of his own, much less a sad one” (Baldwin 2). Therefore, the narrator experiences an internal conflict when deciding whether he should care for his brother and people who are underprivileged, as well as external conflict, such as when the man feels contempt for Sonny’s friend.

Conclusion

Hence, throughout the excerpt, the narrator uses imagery to communicate his feelings, emphasizing his worry and anxiety before depicting the internal and external struggle involving Sonny and his friend. The author employs tactile imagery to interpret the feelings and show the readers the narrator’s real experiences. Visual imagery is another sort of imagery that frequently appears in the excerpt. It is also significant that the narrator tries to avoid his brother’s acquaintance. On the one hand, the main character yearned for safety and a chance to escape this gloom. On the other hand, he could not emotionally endure such suffering, which led him to desire to keep his distance from such people.

Work Cited

Baldwin, James. Sonny’s Blues. United Kingdom: Penguin Books, 1995.

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"Imagery and Conflict in Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" Short Story." IvyPanda, 1 Nov. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/imagery-and-conflict-in-baldwins-sonnys-blues-short-story/.

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IvyPanda. 2024. "Imagery and Conflict in Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" Short Story." November 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/imagery-and-conflict-in-baldwins-sonnys-blues-short-story/.

1. IvyPanda. "Imagery and Conflict in Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" Short Story." November 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/imagery-and-conflict-in-baldwins-sonnys-blues-short-story/.


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