Lydias Essay 2

Lydia Schulz
Mr. H. Salsich
English 9
16, September 2008
Learning to Listen
Discussing an Essay on “Sonny’s Blues”

When I first read Sonny’s Blues, I didn’t realize exactly how much I had missed. I thought I had been reading carefully, but after reading Suzy Goldman’s views on the story, I realized that compared to her, I didn’t take in anything at all. While I thought it had been a good story and well written, she delves much deeper in discussing many different levels of the story. In her essay, James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”: A Message In Music Goldman discusses more than I could ever take from that story.
I found this to be a very thoughtful piece of writing. Many of the points made were very shrewd and insightful to the main point of Sonny’s Blue’s. Ms. Goldman’s essay covered most of the key elements in the story and showed the importance of each. One point in the essay at which I noticed this was when Goldman says,” For that first true acceptance of himself, Sonny tells the narrator,‘ You’re my brother.’” One of the essential points talked about in this essay was listening and actually hearing. When Goldman states, “the narrator finally hears his brother’s sorrow in his music, hears, that is, Sonny’s blues,” she subtlely points out that the story was telling us to listen to the ones we love and actually hear what they are saying. This theme continues to crop up throughout the essay, emphasizing its importance. On the whole, this essay covers not only the story of Sonny’s Blues, but also the lessons that go along with it.
I enjoyed reading this thoughtful essay for many reasons. For instance, I liked the style of writing. The frequent excerpts from the book worked well to help emphasize the author’s point, which helped to make them more meaningful. I also noticed that the writing was complex in that there were many expanded sentences, but the writing was still very to the point. Another reason I liked this essay was because of what I thought to be the theme: listening. As Goldman continually hints at this idea, she plants it in our minds and has us think about what it means to truly listen while reading her writing. This certainly worked because as I read, I found myself contemplating what we really hear when we think we are listening. I think that Ms. Goldman did a wonderful job of covering the main points of this story and I greatly enjoyed learning her point of view.
After reading Ms. Goldman’s essay, I feel I have gained a much better understanding of “Sonny’s Blues.” Although I am sure it would take a very long time to get everything I could from the story, I now can comprehend one of the main themes of the story: listening. Now that I have understood it in this literature, I am more equipped to practice my listening and being more attentive to people. Maybe I will be able to finally really hear people in their tragedies, just like our narrator finally heard Sonny.


Works cited:
Goldman, Suzy Bernstein. "Sonny's Blues: James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 22 September 2008. .