"Sonny's Blues," by James Baldwin

In “Sonny's Blues,” much of what occurs centers around the narrator’s younger brother, Sonny.   The excerpt describes the life Sonny lives and the hardships within it.  It also describes the narrator’s life and thoughts as well as the relationship he has with his mother.  To begin with, the narrator suggests his brother committed suicide.  This shows how the narrator disapproves of Sonny’s lifestyle, how he feels that Sonny has thrown away his life through drugs and music.  Surprisingly, Sonny is described as “not scared, timid, or obsequious,” and the narrator is described as “dutiful,” “cautious, frightened, and retiring.”  Out of the two brothers, one wouldn’t expect Sonny, the more confident brother, to be the one to “commit suicide.”  Instances that foreshadow this suicide include Sonny being admitted to a New York hospital and Sonny being arrested for peddling and using heroin.  A symbol in the excerpt is Harlem.  Harlem symbolizes Sonny’s despair, grief, and drive to freedom.  Also, as the narrator describes a story in a book a student gave him, many parallels can be found between the story and the narrator’s life.  They include Harlem as a place of despair and the safer, older brother being a teacher.  Describing the younger brother in the story as “menaced by his need to make life bearable” may give some insight into why Sonny chooses to live the life he does.  In this excerpt, many contrasts are made between light and darkness, life and death, and entrapment and freedom.  A couple examples are the narrator’s dad feeling like the night his brother died being the darkest night he'd ever seen, and Sonny “[looking] out from the depths of his private life, like an animal waiting to be coaxed into the light.”  All of these contrasts mentioned also serve as themes alongside isolation, which is reinforced through the characters mostly keeping to themselves and the schoolboys the narrator teaches being together in mindset but physically alone.  The end of the excerpt presents the audience with irony.  Before, the narrator saw Sonny as a lost cause and as a dying man.  After seeing Sonny play his instrument, the narrator realizes the connection a man’s sorrow has with his instrument.  The narrator suggests that Sonny’s music provides a relieving sense of freedom that only Sonny can take the audience to.  Pointing back to the contrast between light and dark, the narrator lastly describes Sonny as being enlightened by a glowing light, suggesting the narrator’s new view of Sonny as vivid and free.

Robert Frost...Mending Wall, Birches

In Mending Wall, Robert Frost describes the relationship between two neighbors. They are separated by a wall, but one of the neighbors sees no reason for the wall since there are no cows to fence in. The other neighbor insists that "good fences make good neighbors" (line 27). A sense of isolation and loneliness is suggested in a few words in the poem, including "frozen-ground-swell" (line 2), "gaps" (line 4), and "boulders that have fallen" (line 16). Also, the phrase "like an old-stone savage armed" (line 40) likens the stones to dangerous weapons. For the neighbor that doesn't see the purpose of the wall, this may seem true. This neighbor views the stone wall as something that tears apart a relationship, instead of strengthening it. The poem doesn't rhyme or have a specific rhythm. At the same time, it isn't choppy but flows well. This suggests a more casual and calmly misunderstood rather than cautious and angry tone. In Birches, Robert Frost writes about the limbs of birch trees, how their branches look as if a boy has been swinging from them. In reality, the bends in the limbs are caused from ice, but the narrator would rather use his imagination. The narrator believes that the bends were caused by swinging boys, like himself when he was younger. A few words in the poem suggest a beauty and fragility the narrator sees in the branches. These words include "crystal shells" (line 10), "broken glass" (line 12), and "you'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen" (line 13). Comparing the birch trees to girls in lines 19 and 20 additionally gives the branches these feelings of beauty and fragility. The phrase mentioned above in line 13 also shows the reader that swinging through the birch trees places the narrator in his own haven. Phrases like "The click upon themselves as the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured as the stir cracks and crazes their enamel" (lines 7-9) also allow the reader to almost audibly hear ice breaking and cracking by repeating the "c" sound. Overall, the narrator regrets not being able to find the peace he did as a child swinging through the birch trees. He wishes to escape to that calm and find peace beyond a real world, or the "Truth" (line 21), filled with stress and calamity.

"Photograph of My Father In His Twenty Second Year" by Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver's poem "Photograph of My Father In His Twenty Second Year" presents the theme of appearances versus reality. The father in the poem tries his best to appear confident and bold in the picture. For example, lines 4 through 5 state, "...he holds in one hand a string of spiny yellow perch, in the other a bottle of Carlsbad Beer." This shows the father's effort to appear manly and bold, since both fishing and drinking beer are popularly viewed as evoking such. Other words and phrases that suggest the father's bold and cool front are "leans against the front fender of a 1934 Ford" (lines 6 through 7), "pose bluff and hearty for his posterity" (line 8), and "old hat cocked over his ear" (line 9). All of these make the father appear confident. On the contrary, the narrator viewing the picture reads between the lines. The narrator sees that the father is not truly confident or manly. The narrator sees the father's "eyes that give him away" (line 11) and his "hands that limply offer the string of dead perch and the bottle of beer" (lines 11-12). These phrases prove that inwardly the father is not as bold as his appearance suggests he is. In other words, he is not acting himself but is pretending to be someone he isn't. The last line of the poem shows that the narrator consequently suffers from his father's lack of confidence and manliness. Since the narrator never had a tough, fatherly figure in his life, as the photograph would otherwise suggest, the narrator never took part in typical "father-son" activities. The narrator therefore was never taught these activities and was forced to lead the same life the father did when young. A couple words stuck out in this poem, particularly "sheepish" in line 3 and "cocked" in line 9. Sheepish could mean either bashful or docile. This could serve to further confirm the theme of appearances versus reality, showing that inwardly the father was bashful, while outwardly he appeared calm and casual. Cocked sounds similar to cocky. This could suggest the father's willingness to appear self-satisfied. His appearance clearly suggests he has an ego, when in reality he does not. Lastly, the choppiness of the first line suggests a dissatisfaction and willingness to want more. The setting presented also suggests a sour tone. Describing it as an "unfamiliar kitchen" additionally suggests something unusual about the picture, particularly the father's bold appearance that contrasts with what the narrator knows to be true.

In a Station of the Metro-test

A crowd silently waiting for the Catbus,
Unconsiously mimicking mimes.