Lydia's Essay 16

Lydia Schulz
Mr. H. Salsich
English 9
April 16, 2009

No Love Like This:

An Essay On “Sonny’s Blues” and “The Little Brother Poem”

       Everyone has heard of sibling rivalry. If you have siblings, you know exactly how it works: they make fun of you, you make fun of them, they argue with you, you fight, you make up (asyndeton). However, we never think of what would happen if we didn’t reconcile. It just isn’t something that crosses our minds. Unfortunately, this occurred in both “The Little Brother Poem” by Naomi Shihab Nye and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin.
       Ms. Nye does not use much figurative language in this poem, but the apparent lack of it makes it more striking when she does use it. The first occasion is when she is comparing their differences, using metaphors to describe her brother and herself as “Wall Street,” and “the local fruit market.” (Participle as a closer) These metaphors help contrast their different personalities, but the casual way in which Nye uses them shows that she likes these differences, that she is happy that they aren’t exactly the same (parallelism). The specific examples she uses show how well she knows her brother and how much she loves him. Earlier on in the poem, Nye illustrates the night her brother left with “some strange bruise [he] still carried under the skin.” This bruise represents all the feelings and emotions that he has repressed over the years. This line reminds the reader of the pain that Nye’s brother has endured and the way that it finally got the best of him. In the final stanza of the poem, Ms. Nye talks about the rest of their lives, saying, “you’re on the edge of yours today.” This sentence brings a sense of uncertainty into the poem and shows that neither sibling knows what lies ahead or whether they will be reunited. It seems to strip the two of everything they have accumulated, of all their history, and leave them in their simplest form: a sister and her little brother, not knowing what the future holds. Naomi Shihab Nye uses figurative language so sparingly (FAST) that when she does use it, it is that much more powerful.
       Between “The Little Brother Poem” and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, there is no truer representation of the relationship between siblings and family. In “Sonny’s Blues,” the part of the story when little Grace falls illustrates the way someone cares about a member of their family. Baldwin writes, “something happened to her to make her afraid,” the way anyone would be worried about one of their kin. This fear spouts from love, and it is the same fear that Nye feels when she thinks about her brother. Another part that brought me back to the poem was when the narrator of “Sonny’s Blues” “saw the moonlit road where [his] father’s brother died.” This reminded me of when Ms. Nye’s brother “disappeared into the streets of Dallas at midnight.” Though they were in different circumstances, both lost a brother. One of the crucial (FAST) moments in “Sonny’s Blues” is when Sonny takes a sip of the drink his brother bought him and gives him a nod. Sonny is recognizing that his brother cares for him and communicating that he returns the feelings, much like the phone call between Nye and her brother. For both sets of siblings, their relationship is not perfect, but they are working on improving, and acknowledging their love for each other is the first step. They want to make their bond stronger, because they know that there is no love like that of siblings.
No matter who you are, where you are from, what color your skin is, or where you live, every family has problems (periodic sentence). It is the ability to work past these difficulties that makes us stronger, and this is something that was done in both “Sonny’s Blues” and “The Little Brother Poem.” Some people think that they can get by without their family, but your family is always there for you and will always love you, no matter what you have done. For this, we are forever in debt to them.