Sarah's Essay Numero 2

Sarah Shourds Shourds 1
Mr. Salsich
9th Grade English
22 September 2008
Never Be Unheard:
An Essay on an Essay, by Suzy B. Goldman

The essay, "James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: A Message in Music", written by Suzy B. Goldman, was written with "perfect harmony" and "carr[ied] a vital social message for us" about the story Sonny’s Blue’s, written by James Baldwin. (Goldman) She tells about her opinions on the short story, and thinks that if everyone just listened to one another, that the world would be so much easier. The essay later tells about Sonny and his brother, two complete opposites, attract and learn to piece the puzzle of life together. Goldman’s essay was truly moving, and helped my understanding of "Sonny’s Blues".
Suzy Goldman varies her sentence lengths, uses FAST words as much as possible, and helped my understanding of Sonny’s Blue’s. Goldman helped by piecing up every aspect of the short story, and explaining every detail that needed to be explained. For example, she took a lot of passages from the story and explained them into four different movements. Each movement was basically how she thought the story was divided up, and dividing the story up like this helped better my understanding of each flashback, and each present day recap. Also, Goldman used FAST words such as "equating" and "recapitulating". These FAST words helped Goldman’s essay run smoother, and she used them in such context that it was easy to know what each word meant. In this sentence, " The fourth movement begins by recapitulating and developing the first," the meaning of recapitulating clearly means to summarize, and the sentence makes that clear (Goldman). Goldman is a very swift writer and uses great techniques that help her writing flow with dignity.
It’s hard to summarize an essay like so, because Goldman basically pieced apart Sonny’s Blue’s and summarized that short story. The message that Goldman so vividly wrote about was very true- make yourself heard before it’s too late. Sonny, as Goldman said, was "unheard". I think Sonny was unheard for so long because he didn’t put all of his heart into his music, and when he finally did, he was heard by his fellow peers. Goldman then knows that the narrator feels Sonny’s strength’s, and can tell that he was being heard by others. Goldman basically breaks the story into five definite sections - the first "movement" begins with Sonny’s arrest, the second "open’s with Sonny’s first letter", the third is based on the word "safe" and is a flashback of Sonny’s father, the fourth recaps on the first movement, expanding in greater detail about little Gracie’s death, and the final "movement" is the theme. The first, second and third "movement[‘s]" are of Sonny being immature, and revolving around heroine to answer his problems. In the last two "movements" Sonny realizes that letting his problems play through his fingers and into people’s ears, rather than bottling up his problems and using a drug to cover it, helps him feel better and like a better person.
Suzy Goldman’s essay touched on the very essential keys in life- to listen to one another, and let to let no voice go unheard. Sonny knows the feeling of being unheard, but don’t let yourself feel like that. Goldman’s essay was written with strong techniques and was written with great power. "Sonny’s music stirs special memories in the brothers’ lives, but these blues belong to all of us, for they symbolize the darkness which surrounds all those who fail to listen to and remain unheard by their fellow men." (Goldman)






Works Cited:

Suzy Bernstein Goldman. "Sonny’s Blues: James Badlwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: A Message in Music."
Short stories for students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowsky. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998.http://www.enotes.com/sonnys-blues/james-baldwins-sonnys-blues-message-music
January 2006. 19 September 2008.