Compare and Contrast Goodbye My Brother and Sonnys Blues Essay Example for Free

Compare and Contrast Goodbye My chum salmon and Sonnys Blues EssayNo allegory loafer be as touching as family relationships and atonement and when it comes to family, two of the most celebrated stories most br separates are Sonnys Blues and Goodbye My Brother. Goodbye My Brother is said to be one of outhouse Cheevers greatest literary success while Sonnys Blues garnered widespread critical claim for crowd together Baldwin. It is enkindle to note that by comparing and contrasting the two, there are a lot of striking lessons around what to do and what not to do when it comes to dealing with family relationships can be learned from these stories. buttocks Cheevers Goodbye My Brother is a story that centers around the Pommeroy family. The family is composed of the widow mother, Mrs. Pommeroy, and her four children named Diana, Chaddy, Lawrence and the one narrating the story. All of the children are fully grown up and are all living their separate lives and this reunion i n particular was a special one because they have not seen Lawrence in four years. Diana is divorced and is living in France, Chaddy is a fortunate businessman who lives in New York, Lawrence the youngest is a lawyer and the teller teaches the secondary schoolhouse.The Pommeroys can be considered as an upper class family who got together in Lauds Head in New England for a family reunion at their old beach house. The cashier openly talked virtually the siblings general dis exchangeable for Lawrence and despite the efforts of their mother, he refused to hit out and be a part of their family. This apparent tension between Lawrence and their mother has a history. Lawrence was save sixteen years old when he said said that Mother was everyplacely strong, mischievous and destructive. He was in boarding school back then and he did not come home for Christmas, later on which, he seldom comes home.E rattlingthing seems to be going as expected until the unnamed narrator fellow beat h is brother Lawrence who seemed outer space since the beginning of the story. (Cheever, p. 1-10). This melodramatic tale was one of the earliest stories written by Cheever who has been compared with Dante because he perceives God as a mystical being. As a writer he gives emphasis to the twinkling of the earth and it can be aptly upholdd that many a(prenominal) paragraphs from his acidulates hardly pass without him invoking the ignitor of the world. This mystical notion is the reason why many people think that Cheever does not pay help on God.Goodbye My Brother has a genuinely unexpectedly strange resultant. The story ends with Helen and Diane walking like naked goddesses out of the sea and as such, it is safe to say that the title is inconsistent with the remnant (Wood, p. 1163). However, other commentators who read this story appreciated the powerful language used by Cheever in the terminate. According to them, the ending illustrated the familiarity of the author with Kin g James and Shakespeare (Boyle, p. 1). In general, the mastery of the author in incorporating symbolism by means of his work can be best appreciated in this ending.It can be noticed that Cheever uses water as a main symbolic element that clearly demonstrates how the ebb and flow of the ocean waters can be related to mens existence. The narrator described the family get together as warm and tender which is in clear contrast with the exasperation that Lawrence is feeling with his family. This story gives the readers an exercise of their point of view as they observe the striking contrast between the optimism and the pessimism of human nature in the personality of the two brothers, the sunny and harmful unnamed narrator and his saturnine youngest brother Lawrence.On the other hand, Sonnys Blues by James Baldwin is some other masterpiece that the readers love to read about two brothers and since the story of Goodbye My Brother is withal about brotherly relationships, most readers ca n find that a mixture of the two relationships can give them a glimpse of what it would be like if they were to cooperate with each other or let pride and villainy get in the way of family. Sonnys Blues is a story of how two African American brothers contradict to the blues of each other and how they handle their inner conflicts.The feelings experienced by the main characters is called blues, which is a mental and emotional state that arose from the recognition of the limitation imposed mostly in the case of African Americans by the racial barriers to the opportunities that they often encounter. The narrator, who makes his living as a school teacher and his brother who is a jazz pianist make their way into the world struggling to understand the other party (Flibbert, p. 32). The narrators stolon instinct was to believe the story in the newspaper. It said that his brother was arrested for dealing with heroin and for him, it was not very hard to believe.He started feeling scared fo r Sonny and it is here that the narrator has started to relate the fear that he has lived with his whole life. Little did he know that this event will serve as a accelerator pedal for their closeness. While still in shock, the narrator was forced to confront their past. When a familiarity of the narrator went to his school to bring his the news about Sonny, he said that he abruptly hated him. (Baldwin, p. 2). However, as the narrator continues to express his sentiments, he realizes that he feels a little bit guilty for not listening to him before.The friend goes on to talk about the effects of heroine in the body and as the conversation goes on, a underground care for his brother can be sensed from the narrator. He even sent a earn to Sonny and this correspondence continues until Sonny returned to New York. This story has several flashbacks that contribute to the readers comprehension of the history of the space of the two brothers and how they both overcome that distance little by little. In the last scene of the story, the narrator found himself in a jazz club where his brother works and so he still that this was indeed what Sonnys world looks like.This is where the two brothers were finally reunited by music as the narrator listens to his Sonny and his friends. The rough- debase experience of suffering is one of the things that makes men relate to each other and by denying these feelings, the narrator has denied himself a place among his community and friends. This last scene illustrates how the narrator took one more step into discovering his brother and how through his own suffering and Sonnys example, he found himself in the brotherhood and company of men (Murbeam p. 197).The common depicted object of Goodbye My Brother and Sonnys Blues is family relationships. What makes these story appealing and real is the amazing insight that John Cheever and James Baldwin have on familial relationships. These two authors were able to successfully explore the notion of identity and favorable context in the stories and the readers feel a more personal connection with the character because they were told from a early persons point of view. James Baldwins Sonnys Blues opens when the narrator found out through a newspaper that his brother was arrested for heroin dealing.Interestingly, the two stories involve two brothers but in contrast, Sonny Blues talks about how the two brothers were able to understand each other and Goodbye My Brother talks about the misinterpret and refusal to reach out between two brothers. The striking contrast can be seen at the ending of the two stories. Goodbye My Brother ends with the bathing of Helen and Dianne at sea. After the fight of the unnamed narrator and Lawrence, zippo was said about them making amends and things were left the way they were.On the other hand, Sonnys Blues ends very well. At beginning, the two brothers here were distant like the brothers in Goodbye My Brother but over time, they have come to understand each other. Starting from the moment of Sonnys arrest, the two brothers are getting impendent and closer and in the end of the story, Sonny declared the narrator as his brother for the very first time (Baldwin, p. 23). Unlike here in Sonnys Blues, the brother in Goodbye My Brother both privation the willingness to reach out and make an effort to fix their relationship and understand each other.Some critics mentioned that the ending of Goodbye My Brother displayed the authors familiarity with the King James version and that of Shakespeares works (Boyle, p. 1). In the same way, Sonnys Blues also depicts Baldwins biblical sense. These two stories both use symbolism which makes the story profoundly interesting to the readers. The narrator Baldwins story can be likened to the character of Cain. In Genesis, after Cain kills his brother Abel, God asks Cain about his brother and he answered by saying that he is not his brothers keeper.The final conversation between the narrator and his mother sends a message to the readers that their mother wants him, to be his brothers keeper but the narrator failed in doing his duty and this failure was do clear in the opening lune of the story. The narrators act of relying on the newspaper to know the whereabouts of his brother is not a sign of keeping his promise to his mother that he will take care of Sonny. As a matter of fact, Sonny did not even phone him after the arrest was made and this only shows the distance between them in the start of the story (Tackach, p.4). Lastly, both stories carry a social message that many people today will find applicable. In Goodbye My Brother, the refusal of the brothers to fix their broken relationship was the ancient factor that led to the violent ending of their relationship and as the title implies, the brothers are ready to cut their bond to each other while in contrast, it is the willingness of Sonny and his brother that led to the harmonious reconciliation of their relationship.Happy ending or not, many people learned what life is like for those who harden their police wagon and for those who open them for it is in the shared intensity of suffering that darkness is pierced and a new ray of hope is born. Works Cited Baldwin, James. Sonnys Blues in Vintage Baldwin. New York Vintage. 2004. Print. Boyle, T. On Learning to Appreciate John Cheevers Stories. NPR. org. NPR. 2006. Web. 2010. http//www. npr. org/templates/story/story. php? storyId=5652619. Cheever, John. The Stories of John Cheever. New York Random House, Inc.1978. Print. Flibbert, Joseph. Sonnys Blues Overview in Reference Guide to Short Fiction. US St. James Press. 1994. Print. Murray, Donald. James Baldwins Sonnys BluesComplicated and Simple. NY Newberry College. 1977. Print. Tackach, James. Biblical Foundation of James Baldwins Sonnys Blues. BNET. 2007. Web. 20 whitethorn 2010. http//findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_qa3777/is_200701/ai_n19197653/pg_4/ Wood, Ralph. The Modest and Ch aritable Humanism of John Cheever. Christian Century. USA Christian Century Foundation. 1982. Print.