As with all of the stories read for this class, while I am reading I look for the answer to the question “why did Corrigan have us read this particular story?” I guess this takes away from reading the stories sometimes, especially when I can’t find the answer to that question. This story was one of those examples. It also was hard to follow.
I pretty much understood this story, until the ending. Not to sound cynical or anything, but to me it seemed just like every other story about an African American family living in the projects. All of the hardships seem to be the same, death, alcoholic family members, drugs, and family problems, just seen in a different way.
Not to say I necessarily didn’t like this story, a few things did stick out to me. One was when Sonny was talking about joining the army or some branch of the military. His reason was “to get out of Harlem.” This upset me a little. I just had a conversation with a friend from back home before reading this story about how he wasn’t to join the military. I specifically asked him why he wanted to, sincerely because he wants to serve his country or because it’s the only thing he think he can do. It makes me sad when people use the military-which is pretty much a death trap- to escape their current life. There is so much more you can do than to throw your life away just because you are unhappy with the way it is right now.
This story as a whole, all of the problems Sonny had gone through touched me, especially because he was so young. At first, I thought Sonny was older, so it didn’t bother me as much. God has placed a compassion in me for youth who struggle, no matter what it is- hurt, drugs, drinking, self-harm, anything like that so this story made me want to reach of to Sonny in some way. I am glad though, that he found some sort of escape which was his music. At least he could take all of his troubles and find a peace with them by letting out his emotions in music.
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