Week 13!!!

“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story that reveals to the reader the harsh realities of life for some people. These realities include drug addictions impact on family life as well as loosing someone very close. The narrator of the story is self-centered until he finds himself slapped in the face with the reality of what has happened to his brother Sonny as well as his own faults. The story begins with the narrator learning the awful news that Sonny is in jail. This news leads the narrator to a trip down memory lane. During this time, the narrator learns that Sonny’s problems have always been there. . However, the narrator has been too busy with his own life to intervene in Sonny’s life As a matter of fact, the narrator never even wrote to his brother in jail until his own daughter died. Sonny, like most men living in Harlem at the time, was pulled into the dark hole of a typical Harlem lifestyle. Drugs as well as living in poverty was a main issue most people faced. Sonny is the opposite of his brother the narrator. Sonny wants to go further than what he was born into yet, he lets the thing he doesn’t want the most to happen, happen. Sonny expresses his anxiety through his music. The main problem Sonny faces is his drug addiction. A temporary solution to a not so temporary problem is drugs to Sonny. The narrator of the story does eventually become close with Sonny after the death of his own daughter. Despite the flashbacks the narrator has, the narrator still chooses not to see the true root of Sonny’s problems or even who Sonny truly is at all. It is not until the very end of the story that the narrator finally opens his eyes. Sonny takes his brother to watch him play his jazz . It was not until this moment that the narrator saw his brother for the first time.





Randall Jarrel was a war veteran in the US Army Air Force. It is evident that impact war had on his very soul in his poem “Losses”. The word “dying” is used so much in the poem that it overtakes the reader’s emotions. It sends them on the exact mission of the narrator. The mission this time would be death or surviving. In order to survive they must kill people that they do not know. The narrator emphasizes that they do not know whom they are killing. At the same time, their existence is very bleak. They are just casualties or if they survive they get medals. The narrator gives the reader an insight to the poor sad lives of those who fought in war. Jarrel also mentions dreaming in a lot of his poems. It seems that if dreaming is his only escape from the ever reoccurring theme of death. Death is not to be taken literally, however. Death is more like a heavy weight lifted from him because the life he is living is like dying anyways. The first two poems are definitely the darker of the three that I read.War seems to be a popular subject to write about. The final poem titled “ Girl in a Library” is surprisingly different from the other two. This poem seems to be a descriptive poem at first but after reading it a second time I realized more of what was actually going on in the poem. The poem shows a girl who does not realize her potential. She is very boring and simple. Although, the girl seems to be an average girl with little educational comprehension she is eventually given respect from the narrator.



Sylvia Plath definitely knew how to touch hands with the darker side of life. Each of her writings seem to give me the chills as I read them. “Lady Lazarus” was the first poem I read. To me, it seems as if this is a poem about her repeatedly trying to kill herself. She claims she is a cat with nine lives. The first time it happened was an accident but the rest were on purpose. The doctors are her enemies. This is some pretty grotesque writing. I would have assumed that her husband or someone else she was close to would have known the signs that something was not quiet right with her. It would be interesting to know what she thought about and how she behaved. The way Plath uses the German language in her poems also give them that eerie atmosphere. Although the poems are very dark they seem to lure me in. I couldn’t help but reread them over again just to try to understand or put the poem down. “Daddy” is an even darker poem to me. Plath seems to innocent in the beginning then she goes on to her normal outrageous writing style. She uses a lot of references to the war that was going on during her life. Perhaps, her father fought in the war. She does not seem to think the war is right and seems angry at her father for fighting in it and dying for an unjust cause. I am not too sure though interpreting poetry has always been a weakness of mine. I did notice that she referenced to her trying to kill herself in both poems. Perhaps dying is what she wants to do. She claims it was a calling for her in the first poem I read.