ate more suffering. The one respite he has from it all is his music, specifically Jazz and the blues. These genres are edgy, not appreciated by the button-down world his brother lives in. Yet they are more expressive than other genres and more reflective of an authentic response to the world around him. Unlike the cookie-cutter persona his brother has adopted, Sonny is feeling and responding to life on a gut level.
The narrator, although tasked by his mother to take care of Sonny, basically avoids him because SonnyÆs lifestyle and music are alien to the culture he himself has been assimilated into. He fears that SonnyÆs pursuits will get him into trouble, and he has trouble facing him or interacting with him because of this. Above all, there is the sense that Sonny is not good enough, not adequate to fit into the respectable lifestyle that the brother embraces.
This is an excellent picture of racism at its heart. The narrator, like supremacist whites, fails to understand Sonny. SonnyÆs edgy music and unsavory habits inspire fear and distas
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