Reading Response #3

Marlena Szumowski

En-102

Reading response #3)

                In the story “Sonny Blues” we read about two brothers James which is also the narrator and his brother Sonny who’s been constantly getting involved in things he couldn’t be such as drugs specifically heroin. I would say that with the two of them living mostly in a place with a lot of poverty, which it’s quite common for someone to get pulled into bad habits.

                I think that in this story its leaning more to we should be able to live the life it is that we personally want to live, without having other people telling us what is it that we have to do. Some people may choose the bad route in their life, and then later on determine that they’re better than that and aim for good. Then there are those people who start off good and sooner or later one thing leads to another and everything just seems to go downward.

                It’s very obvious to notice that the both James and Sonny have different views on how to live their life. To me, it seems as though James is leaning more on his way of living life because he mentioned how he didn’t speak to his brother or keep in touch with him over a long period of time. This can prove that he really isn’t aware of how Sonny views his life and just exactly why he chose to do in order t live the life he was living.

                Of course the setting has a huge impact on the circumstances of James and his brother Sonny. As I mentioned earlier, growing up in a place where there’s a large amount of poverty it’s easy to let yourself down and not have any guidance in the right direction. If you’re living in a neighborhood with a lot of gang member, drugs, violence you more likely to get into that without having proper guidance in the right direction. James had a family to tend for, and with his mom and dad being passed away like Sonny mentioned in the letter, Sonny had no encouragement or leadership from anyone and he ended up doing drugs, as well as ending up in prison.