Timmy's Essay 2

Timmy O’Brien
Mr. Salsich
English 9
22 September 2008

Living Life by the Music:

An Essay on an Essay about “Sonny’s Blues”

        How can one live without music in his or her life? It may seem easy to some, but if you think about it, you realize how much of it we hear without even trying to. For example, you can hear excerpts of song on the radio from cars passing by, or someone singing randomly on the street. Either way, we must realize the importance of music and then let it into our life.
        In her essay, Goldman talks about the importance of music in the lives of Sonny and the narrator. She suggests that when the narrator learns of Sonny’s arrest, he starts to take in the sounds of the children around him and allows memories to come back. Goldman says that “the last boy particularly suggests Sonny, the young man who makes himself heard and transcends …the darkness, with his song.” In saying this, she brings up the idea that even the smallest thing can have a big impact deep within your heart. Goldman also talks about Sonny, saying, “Sonny was at the piano playing for his life.” This implies that, without music and its value to him, Sonny would be living only for the prospect of death. Therefore, music is not only important in his life; it is his life – his only spark of happiness. In the end, Goldman describes the musical connection between the two brothers – the narrator’s realization “that [Sonny] could help [them] to be free if [they] would listen”, but he could never be free until they did.
       In this essay, I think that Goldman is basically trying to give us a descriptive summary of “Sonny’s Blues”. She breaks the story up into five parts, which I found very interesting because, for me, the story flowed nicely and was just one story. The sections of this essay start with the narrator learning about his brother’s arrest and end with the narrator learning the secret behind Sonny’s life. I found that strange because it was a very broad topic to write about in just 3 pages. One thing I really like about this essay was that, when Goldman decided to go into detail on something, she spared nothing. For instance, I didn’t understand the part where James Baldwin says that the narrator started to feel for one of Sonny’s old friends and decided to listen to the words he was saying. After reading Goldman’s essay, I realized that the reason the narrator had never really heard the man’s words was because he didn’t always care about other people, but when he realized that everyone had a story, he wanted to learn it, and learn it he did. Overall, I thought the essay was descriptive, interesting, and almost magical to the confused mind.

        In the end, this essay really gave me the true impression of music in life. It shows that music can cure souls, but also kill them if one becomes too attached and can’t break free. It shows that when you listen to music, you are joining in on a worldwide trek for happiness. Most of all, it shows that you care for one of the most important parts of our culture – the music that lives in everybody, and after years of struggling, finally comes out.
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Works Cited:

Suzy Bernstein Goldman.
“James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: A Message in Music”. Negro American Literature Forum, Vol 8, no. 3, Fall, 1974. Pp. 231-233.