A rose for Emily and Sonny's blues Essay

A theme is a message portrayed in a narration. I will handle the theme of darkness in the given books; A rose for Emily and Sonny's blues. In the two short stories, a rose for Emily and sonny's blues, the theme of darkness is brought to picture. Emily's whole life has been in darkness; this is because, first, the father never wanted her to marry the love of her life; Emily is seen as a puppet where she does and follows her father's orders. When her father dies, it is expected that the darkness will be broken, but unfortunately, Emily is not flexible to change. Thus she holds on to her father. She refuses to acknowledge that her father had died for three days to the people who came to console her before she finally accepted to give him out to be buried. This makes everybody in the city feel weird about her and the fact that she never wanted to let anybody in her house except the gardener who was so secretive too.

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Darkness is also revealed when she meets the hormer who comes from the north while Emily comes from the south. The women in the neighborhood feel that Emily is going against their culture by interacting with the hormer, who is from the north. This shows the conflict between the north and the south that they have refused to let go. Homer contributes to the darkness because of his beliefs about marriage. The darkness can also be felt when the women of the city feel like Emily is not fine, and they send a religious leader to her place, but when it comes out, he doesn't want to talk about what conspired in that meeting. The union between Emily and hormer is short-lived as Emily murders him. There is a lot of darkness surrounding his disappearance because he is seen entering the house and never comes out. The mystery is solved when Emily dies; the remains of hormer are found in a locked room upstairs.

The theme of darkness in sonny's blues is portrayed in that the African American race is a threatened race on the streets. It is evident that when the boys go to the streets, they go out to get peace and fresh air, but it turns out to be disastrous to them. The narrator also portrays an image where the drugs seem to be important to the boys than their education. There is darkness shown by the lives of the older people. They hide what they have seen in their past from their babies because it will scare these kids of their future. The kids are left in darkness, oblivious of what is ahead of them. On the other hand, the narrator feels that by getting an education and acquiring a stable job will be a solution to his darkness, but that's not the case.

Conclusion

In both stories, the characters feel they need to solve the darkness in their lives, but it requires strength and determination. Unfortunately, Emily dies in her darkness in the story of Emily's rose. At the same time, the narrator manages to work on the darkness in the life of his brother when he joined his brother to his workplace and comes to the conclusion that all along, they have been judging his brother wrongly. The society in both stories is so rigid to change the darkness that they uphold as beliefs. This is evident as they pass them from generation to generation.

References

Tracy, Steven C. "Sonny in the Dark: Jazzing the Blues Spirit and the Gospel Truth in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”." James Baldwin Review 1.1 (2015): 164-178.