Light And Darkness Essay

As the sun rises, birds begin to sing the joy of conflagrate and as the day ends, the birds fly back into the wickedness of night. The darkness of our lives is often modify by the delusion of abstemious. In James Baldwins essay, cubs Blues, the title itself sets up an irony that is explored throughout. The name sonny, when picture, sounds kindred Sunny, meaning brightness, stir up and hope. The word Blues presents the reader images of night, darkness and sadness. The darkness represents the reality of flavor on the streets of Harlem, a community living in an environment where on that point is no escape from the reality of drugs and crime. The dreadful nature of the streets lures adolescents to use drugs as a content of escaping the darkness of their lives. The main character, Sonny, a struggling fill in musician, finds himself addicted to heroin as a way of unleashing creativity and fine ability within him. Using music as a means of creating structure in his breeding, Sonny attempts to step into the light, a life without drugs. grapple with the light and darkness of siblings peck be one of lifes most exhausting ch bothenges as they grow-up and struggle to nisus their own identities.The opposite images of light and darkness serve as the abstract framework for Baldwins essay. This imagery is graduation exercise viewed when the storyteller, Sonnys older brother, thinks near Sonnys fate in the dark subway. I st bed at it in the swinging light of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, pin down in the darkness which roared orthogonal(270). The swinging lights of the subway car allows him to read about Sonnys arrest, while the darkness roared outside. This allows the narrator to transact that he has to find a way to absorb and live with this bare-assed understanding of Sonny as an addict and as a blue devils musician. The darkness is the representation of the community of Harlem, where give care the passengers on the subway, the community is detain in their surroundings by economic, social, or physical barriers.The dreadful life of darkness has overwhelmed everyone and everything living in Harlem. The narrator, an algebra teacher, is fearful for his students who are falling into a life of crime and drugs. The harsh realties of the street have abandoned the light from the faces of his brother and his students. These boys, direct, were living as wed been living then, they were growing upwith a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were fill up with rage. All they really knew were deuce dark nesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closedown in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone(271). This illustrates how darkness has engulfed the lives of the sisterren without them realizing it. In addition, the misdirection of the movies has kept these boys from achieving and doing anything with their lives.The community of Harlem, make full with disaster, is following the dull path of previous generations. As Sonny and his brother return to the streets of their youth, they recognize the similarities betwixt their nestlinghood and the lives of the children who are growing up in the hostile community of Harlem. The vivid description by the narrator describes how over the course of time the neighborhood has not changed for the better, only(prenominal) for the worse. He describes how most of the houses in which we had grown up had vanished, as had the stores from which we had stolen, the basements in which we had first tried sex, the rooftops from which we had hurled tin cans and bricks.But houses exactly like the houses of our past yet dominated by landscape, boys exactly like the boys we once had been found themselves smother in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air and found themselves en roundd by disaster(275). This shows how the children, seeking to escape from the darkness of their houses, fled into the streets for refuge. However, the children only found more darkness creeping around in their community.Darkness can be fearful and soothing. The night is creeping up outside, unless nobody knows it yet. You can see the darkness growing against the windowpanes and you hear the street noises every now and again but its real quiet in the room. For a moment nobodys talking, but every face looks darkening, like the sky outside. Everyone is looking at something a child cant see. For a minute theyve forgotten the children. Maybe somebody got a take in in his lap and is absent-mindedly stroking the kids hair. The silence, the darkness coming, and the darkness in the faces frighten the childobscurely. He hopes that the hand which strokes his forehead provide neer stop-will never die.Bu t something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, is already ending. And when the light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. Its what theyve come from. Its what they endure. The child knows that they wont talk any more because he knows as well as much about whats happened to them, hell know to a fault much too soon, about whats going to happen to him (277). The light is a soul of the dark and reality. With the light comes the understanding of the world for the child lying in his mothers lap. Although the child may indispensableness to learn the truth, by doing so he exposes himself to the world and looses part of his naturalness and childhood. Therefore, the child may wish to remain in darkness.The images of light and darkness, which serve as truth and reality, are used to show the struggle between Sonny and the narrator. The narrator recalls a story his mother once told him about an uncle whom a car of drunken white men killed. The narrators father never in his life seen anything as dark as that road after the lights of that car had gone away(279). The narrators father so depressed by the incident that he never did get right again. Till the day he died he werent sure but that every white man he dictum was the man that killed his brother(279). The story serves as a lesson for the narrator to match on to your brother and dont let him fall, no takings what it looks like is happening to him and no matter how evil you gets with him (279). In the story, this of import event alters the narrators responsibilities as an older brother. With this new business comes the burden of raising his younger brother, Sonny. However, when the narrator confronts Sonny to discuss his future, he refuses to accept his brothers goal of becoming a enjoy musician.After going through many hardship and pain, the narrator ultimately realizes that Sonny was at that piano pl aying for his life(283). The narrator accepts Sonnys life as a musician when he accompanies him to a nightclub in target to hear him perform. Within the nightclub, there is a struggle between light and darkness. As Sonny and the rest of his quadruplet wait to go onstage, his brother notices that the light from the bandstand spilled well(p) a little short of them and, watching them laughing and gesturing and moving about, I had the feeling that they, nevertheless, were being most careful not to step into the circle of light too suddenly that if they moved into the light too suddenly, without thinking, they would go on in flame(290). This indicates that, to embrace the truth and gain awareness too fast is painful and devastating. As Sonny plays the piano, the older leader of the band, Creole, leads him into the light, into the water. He wanted Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for deep water. He was Sonnys witness that deep water and drowning were not the analogous thin g-he had been there, and he knew.And while Creole listened, Sonny moved, deep within, exactly like someone in torment. Creole wasnt act any seven-day to get Sonny in the water. He was wishing him Godspeed (291-292). Creole is helping Sonny to unleash his artistic ability not through drugs, but through the emotion of pain and suffering. Music is a way of creating order in a confounded world and the narrator sees that musicians are trying to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the narration of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isnt any other tale to tell, its the only light weve got in all this darkness (291). The daily struggles of life are all the same for everyone, yet the manner in which it is confronted and dealt with is different. Within this consciousness of reality, there is peace and hope that makes the darkness and life worth living.The two brothers, the narrator and Sonny, deal with the harsh realities of their daily lives and are surrounded by a world full of shadows and light. Together they face the inescapable and all encompassing darkness that had plagued their lives. Using music as a form of communication, the brothers are able to overcome their differences and create order in their disordered life. The painful realization of the truth has enabled them to redirect their lives and rebuild on a relationship tarnished by drugs and poverty.