Sunday, September 21, 2008

Sonny's Blues

Finally, we have a reliable narrator. In Sonny's Blues, the narrator is the brother of Sonny, a recovering heroin addict on the path of setting his life straight. It is a great relief that we have a narrator that is not on a spiral downfall towards insanity or a person that is already completely crazy. This is the perfect story for the narrator that we have in the story. We are being given a first hand experience of a brother witnessing his younger brother hit the very bottom and work his way back to being a responsible person.

The way we are introduced to the narrator is that of a school teacher who recieves news of his brother Sonny, an addict at the time, who has been a victim of a raid and is incarcerated. As we go through the days we are involved with the narrator; as we are with him we see at times that he is ashamed of his brother as most would be if their brother was strung out of any kind of drugs. As the story progresses we also see the good memories that the narrator has of his brother and himself. This story is absolutely in need a narrator of the caliber of the one we have.
When we go back to The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose for Emily the stories that are being told are shaped in the form as to where if the narrator had not been in the state of mind they were in the story would not have flowed in the sense the book was meant to be written.

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