Sonnys Blues Sentence Analysis

Pg. 45 of Sonnys-Blues

"All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. "


This sentence is spoken by the narrator as he listens to his brother, Sonny, play with his musician friends at a tavern in Harlem. It describes how he personally views music, viewing it as a way of self-expression and as a different form of speaking. I found this strange at first, because from the rest of the story, I had assumed that the narrator looked down on musicians. But here in this sentence, I could see that he either came around or had already respected musicians, but had thought it an unfit career for his brother.

From what I can tell in the text, Sonny has been pursuing and playing music his entire life, and I feel as if this sentence encapsulates all his struggles. Throughout all the years he had been playing, channeling his 'roar' as the sentence describes, no one that ought to have cared about him ever heard it. When he was lodging at Isabel's, they couldn't properly hear his music, as they said "the sound didn't make any sense to them'. Later, Sonny himself describes his music as an outlet for himself to let loose, a way to show the struggles of his life, even if others couldn't properly hear him.

It's also a good metaphor for the relationship between the 2 brothers. The narrator (the older brother) seemed to believe it was his duty to guide Sonny on the right path, or at least what he believed to be the right path. But Sonny didn't want to pursue an education, he wanted to pursue music. And during his earlier days as an aspiring pianist, his brother didn't listen to him. Akin to how people couldn't properly hear the music he was creating from within. 

I also think it's important to look at this sentence in the context of the music genre, jazz. Jazz in my humble opinion is the most suitable music for people to express themselves. In more classical instrumentation, musicians can express themselves through composing, such as Beethoven even when he was deaf, but even he followed more rigid structures. In jazz, everything is free flow and smooth. With improvisation and freestyle solos being such heavy parts of the genre, jazz musicians bend the rules of music to fit them, rather than the other way around. And I think this makes it optimal for people like Sonny to express themselves without rules or regulations.

Growing Pains

I believe the title "Growing Pains", would be a suitable replacement for the title "The Evolution of my brother" by Jenny Zhang. 

"Growing Pains" generally means the physical pains that someone goes through while growing up, but it also has figurative meaning about the pains one goes through as they progress through life. This story, in my opinion, is literally a representation of growing pains. We see the struggles that the Zhang family experiences as the kids grow up. 

In the story, as we follow along with Jenny's Brother's development, I would argue that we have an Evolution of Jenny more so than her brother. We get to see 3 stages of Jenny's development throughout the story, although a little out of order. We get to see a young Jenny who cares deeply about her brother, and then a teenage rebellious Jenny who just wants to get away from her family, and especially her brothers nagging. Finally, we see Jenny as a young adult, whose remorseful about how she acted as a teen, and how she treated her brother. However, the maturing of her brother also exists quite prominently in the story, so I am not comfortable with just renaming it to"My evolution as a sister". With "Growing Pains" instead, it encompasses the growth of both of them. 

This can also be seen in their mother, as we still experience "growing pains" even late into our lives. Jenny's mom seems to be quite unwilling to believe that her kids are growing up. She complains that Jenny is running off at 18 when she herself stayed with her family until 30, and she also complained about Jenny's dad throwing away Jenny's brothers sleeping mat in their room, despite the fact that he had outgrown it. 

Overall by renaming it "Growing Pains", it helps generalize the story to apply to the entire Zhang family rather than an individual member. Or perhaps, "Growing Pains of the Zhang Family" would be a better title. If there is something that my title doesn't capture, I feel like it would be the remorse at the end felt by Jenny (Although I don't think the original title captured that either).