Based on your reading of "Sonny's Blues", do you think art can save us from suffering? Why or why not? (Please refer directly to the text at least once.)
I believe that art can provide us with an escape from our suffering but not necessarily save us. Towards the end of this "short" story Sonny plays the piano at the bar. At first, he does not play well; he hasn't played in over a year. We see him struggling with himself during this scene. "Sonny moved, deep within, exactly like someone in torment. I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, an ivory. while there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out it to try; to try and make it do everything." This makes it seem like even though Sonny is playing the piano he is suffering with it. However, after this first set ends and Creole launches into a new one Sonny gets his groove back. He plays with his soul. "Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played. Every now and then one of them seemed to say, amen. Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life." To me, this makes it clear that you can loose yourself in the arts (with the piano in Sonny's case) however you can never loose yourself completely as the artist. "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." This statement makes it clear to me that an artist can escape his or her own suffering but not for long. You can escape for a moment but it is inevitable that you have to come back to reality. So, I believe an artist can escape their suffering but can never truly be saved from it.
Yes, I think art can save us from suffering. When someone plays an instrument or creates a piece of art, they express their emotions and feelings while doing so. While Sonny played the piano his “fingers filled the air with life, his life.” I think it was a way for Sonny to forget about his addiction and the problems he dealt with. “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.” This explains that Sonny played to relieve the audience of their suffering so he could do the same. He forgot about all of his issues. His only focus was on the keys of the piano and the sound that came out.
I don't believe that art can save you from suffering, but I believe it can be an outlet in which you can try to avoid suffering. Throughout the story, Sonny deals with this idea, and tries to explain it to the narrator. At the end of the story, when Sonny is playing the piano in a band with Creole, I believe the narrator understands this concept. It's easy for the readers to see how music helps Sonny. "Listen, Creole seemed to be saying, listen. Now these are Sonny's blues. He made the little black man on the drums know it, and the bright, brown man on the horn. Creole wasn't trying any longer to get Sonny in the water. He was wishing him Godspeed. Then he stepped back, very slowly, filling the air with the immense suggestion that Sonny speak for himself. (P.24)" It seems that Sonny put his life into his music, and that you can hear his story throughout the music. Personally, I think music helped Sonny, but I don't believe it "saved" him. He still struggles with many of the problems he dealt with before music. Additionally, later in the piece, I believe the narrator recognizes that Sonny will still have problems later on. "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. (PP.24-25)" Here, the narrator realizes Sonny is helped through music, but he would continue to struggle with Harlem until his death. His suffering would clearly stay with him throughout his life, although music served as a supportive outlet.
In my opinion, art cannot save you from suffering. However, I believe it can ease the suffering or provide an escape for a little while. Suffering is inevitable; its part of life, but art can make it more bearable. When people perform art or create art, they become completely absorbed. This takes them out of their own mind and provides an escape from the world. It is something they can control and predict in a world full of constant, unpredictable, uncontrollable change. An example of this is when Sonny is playing at the bar with Creole at the end of the story. "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. (pg.23)" Sonny is able to control this music even though he can't control his life and can't get out of Harlem. An example of how it helps the artist escape the world is in the same place, once Sonny actually starts playing. "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. (pg.24)" Sonny gets lost in they music and makes it his own which helps him momentarily escape from his uncontrollable life. He is no longer sad and he is in no rush; He is just there to play as long as he can.
Yes, I do believe that art can be an escape for some people. I don't think it can save everyone from their suffering, but it can help others. Sonny is a unhappy character with issues. Once we first met Sonny, we found out that he likes music a lot. He would listen to the same record over and over for days until he got a new one. His dream was to be a musician; a pianist. He wanted to play with jazz musicians. We never find out if Sonny is good until the last page or two of this short story. Once he enters the club, Creole talks to Sonny. Then Sonny walks up to the piano, some people start to cheer and get excited. Everyone knew who he was, "I was in Sonny's world. Or rather: his kingdom…. his veins bore royal blood." After Sonny first started playing, he wasn't keeping up with the beat because he was rusty. Soon he warmed up and "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life." Sonny was unhappy over the course of this short story. After playing the piano the way he did, he became truly happy. "He could help us to be free if we would listen." Sonny helped make others happy. At the same time, he was making himself happy because of the piano.
I would not say that art can save us from suffering because salvation would imply something permanent while the relief art gives is only temporary. During the time that a person creates art, they can avoid suffering temporarily because they are so invested into making something magical that they forget all there pains for just a short moment. This is not salvation from suffering because after you have finished creating art, you will at some point suffer again, and in some ways this is worse because you have come to know what it is like to not suffer. On page 24 in Sonny's Blues, the narrator says this about music, "For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." At its root, the narrator is talking about how music, or any art, is a light to us in the darkness, which means that art can save us temporarily. Sadly, like any earthly light, it will fade and go away with time.
As I return to my room with a mind thinking of the many problems I currently face, I spot my guitar across my room. The rose wood catches the light from the depressing lamp above yet it glares at me begging to be played. As I stride towards the guitar and play the chords the sound echoes. It echoes through my troubled mind and leaves my body with the sigh of relief. In my opinion music is a way to save a person from their sufferings for the time being. Sonny playing piano is also a prime example of this because he has gone through much more than I. Music is a place of retreat but sadly it does not diminish the problem, it only masks it. An example from the text is when Sonny takes hold of the improvised jazz song, all his stress and troubles seem to have left. His little glance towards his brother after taking a sip from the cocktail on his piano shows signs of relief, but the problem of his addictions to drugs and the whereabouts of his future are unknown.
I don't think art can fully save us from suffering, but art can most definitely save us from suffering to some extent. Through art, people and authors are able to express their feelings abstractly without having to use words (sometimes) or explain themselves very much. It can help relieve some stress we get from the suffering happening in life and expressing that and sharing it by telling a story through art. I also think art can help relieve some suffering because it allows one to be unrestricted in their art form and let go off what they are suffering from/about.
However, I don't think art can fully save oneself from suffering. Art can potentially relief some suffering, but I don't think it can always get rid of the suffering. The art created ultimately won't change what goes in the real world (most of the time). It'll just help relieve pain, but won't take away the root cause of the sufferings.
For example, in "Sonny's Blues", Sonny's art form, music, allowed him to express how he suffered from being locked in Harlem, his sufferings from heroin addiction and jail, and the sorrow his family faced. The art of the jazz music allowed him to let out his emotions and reduce the sufferings, but it never could ultimately solve the cause of those sufferings.
Yes, after reading “Sonny’s Blues” I do believe that art can save us from suffering. In this 25-page short story, Sonny does this exact deed. He is having troubles in his life with drugs and is living surrounded by a shady group of people. But during this troublesome time he picks up a for blues music on the piano. This passion helps him forget his problems and just enjoy his life. For example in the story it says, “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth”. (P.24-25) This quote shows how Sonny gets relief from his problems when he was playing the piano and how he felt relieved. It took him away from his problems and temporarily took him away from his suffering. This shows how an art form that is special to someone can help save him or her from his or her torment.
In my opinion, art cannot completely save someone from suffering. Everyone has different ways of getting their emotions out. Some people read, some people eat, some people write, or some people, like Sonny in "Sonny's Blues", play the piano. All these outlets only help distract people and make them forget about their problems for a temporary amount of time, but they will never completely heal someone. People become desperate to constantly utilize the outlets in order to make the pain go away. In "Sonny's Blues", Sonny even says "Sometimes you'll do anything to play [the piano], even cut your mother's throat." Eventually the people realize that outlets will never cure someone fully. This realization can possibly worsen the depression. I think that is one of the reasons Sunny resorted to using drugs; he realized that playing the piano would never permanently cure him. Using drugs is a stronger (but dangerous) attempt to avoid facing your problems for good. However, even drugs will not cure you permanently. All in all, I do not believe that music can save people from suffering, just help people temporarily escape.
Based on "Sonny's Blues," I do not believe that art can save us from suffering in the end. I do think that short term art is a great way to relieve suffering but that only serves as a quick-fix and pretty soon after stopping we feel just as alone and suffer just as we did before. On page 20 the narrator says, and Sonny agrees, "But there's no way not to suffer-is there? This shows that we all suffer and nothing can help us stop it for an extended amount of time. Art can sometimes even cause suffering whether it be to create a better product or just a result of the art itself. Some of the world's greatest artist went through extreme suffering from mental illness to drug addictions like Sonny, their art may have provided an outlet but ultimately could not save them. On page 20, Sonny says, "Some guys, you can tell from the way they play they on something all the time. And you can see that, well, it makes something real for them." This shows that some artists actually suffer as a result of their art.
When I first read this, I immediately thought of MIMS (music is my savior) so I have to say yes. However, maybe not save us, but distract us. But in the end, isn't that the same thing? At the end of the story, it says "freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." (p.24) I love that the story wraps up with this scene. Throughout the story there is death, drugs, and many other horrible things, but by ending with music, that is what you walk away with. Music brought everyone together and gave off the feeling that everything's going to be alright.
In my opinion art can save certain people from suffering, meaning those who enjoy art or are passionate about it. In Sonny's case I definitely think art saved him for multiple reasons. First of all, when he played the piano it was as if he was in his own world where nothing else mattered and all of his problems were solved. For example, in the text it said, "And the face I saw on Sonny I'd never seen before. Everything had been burned out of it, and, at the same time, things usually hidden were being burned in, by the fire and fury of the battle which was occurring in him up there." This quote explains Sonny's passion for playing music, especially jazz/the blues. The piano is his escape and for other people it could be different, but art certainly does not save us all. You need to be passionate about it in order for art to "save" you from your troubles. However, art is just Sonny's temporary escape because when he stops playing, he has to face the harsh reality of life.
I believe that art can save you from suffering because it will give that person a sense of freedom and way to express how there feeling if they cant quite put it in words for others to understand. For instance if someone is mad they would create a up tempo high octave piece of music to listen to or an artist might pant a sad picture with a lot of dull colors and and mournful,sad, depressing image to put you in the mood he was in while creating his piece. In the short story this is exemplified when big brother say to sonny "you know people can't always do what they want to do?'' I used this quote because sonny at this point doesn't have away to express him self or a way to get things off his mind legally. At first he used heroin until he went to jail now it seems like he will use the piano to express him self and apparently he becomes very good and this form of art and at the same time expressing his feelings through music.
I think that art can temporarily reduce someone's suffering. At the same time, a lot of very talented musicians and artists create such amazing art because of their suffering, like Edgar Allen Poe. However, I do not think that it can permanently save people from suffering. For example, in the short story, "Sonny's Blues," Sonny's pain finally seems to be relieved by his music. But at the end of the story, once he has finished playing a phenomenal solo on the piano, a waitress brings him a drink, which his brother refers to as "the very cup of trembling." By saying this, I felt like Sonny's brother was trying to show that even though Sonny seems to have finally been relieved of his constant suffering through his music, he will never overcome his alcohol and drug problem. I also think that art relieves other peoples' suffering more so than the artist's. In the end, I think that art is a way for a lot of people to express their true emotions and feelings, but I do not think that it can permanently relieve someone of their suffering.
I do believe that art can save you from suffering. It provides an opportunity to express your emotions and feelings in a non-destructive manner. Often times art can also provide a community. Being surrounded by fellow artists can help keep goals in perspective. Also, having people who understand you around you creates a support group that can keep you from feeling alone. Art allows something positive to come from something negative, light to come from darkness. In the story, Sonny creates art from pain when he plays the piano- "It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around in us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through," In this passage, you can tell how cathartic playing the piano is for Sonny. Art is a way of expressing one's innermost secrets, and it cleanses people of their suffering.
I do not think that art necessarily saves you from suffering, but rather that it provides an outlet for people to deal with their suffering, to separate themselves from their suffering and turn it into something tangible and beautiful. Similar to what we talked about with a genius separate from an artist, I think that art allows the artist to look at their suffering in the face and be able to deal with it, because they are able to distance themselves from it and capture it in artistic form. However, this process is obviously scary and painful and causes its own suffering in the process (Sonny tells his brother he did drugs NOT just because he is a musician.) As for those listening or looking at the art the artist has captured their suffering in and suffered over, they are not able to fully appreciate the heart and soul that has gone into the work. Therefore, someone is able to escape their own worries through other's art, because they are not trying to master their own suffering like the artist is but rather just escape their own. This is demonstrated at the end of Sonny's Blues, when Sonny plays the piano at a bar for the first time. The narrator says, "All I know about music is that not many people ever hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear... 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... what is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant too, for that same reason."
I think that art can help ease some of the suffering felt by the artist. By letting out all of his feelings through his musical skill, Sonny no longer has to worry about the pent up feelings he has had to deal with while detoxing. However, this is only a temporary feeling; many new emotional feelings arise everyday, filling the the recently emptied space. However, this expression could become a profitable career, leading him down a darker path or out of the the life he tried to escape years before. There comes a point for Sonny when music is "life or death to him." Music is his way of life, as shown in the club while his brother watching in awe as his brother reveals his emotions through his music. Sonny's music is a way of taking the weight of his feelings off of his shoulders. But until he can find a permanent solution to dealing with his emotions, this will remain only a temporary outlet.
I believe that art can save us from suffering, at least temporarily. When an artist's art is the most important thing in the world to them and they're completely absorbed in playing music or writing or working on a painting or drawing, nothing around them matters. Art provides an escape from the troubles the artist deals with in daily life, as well as an outlet for the emotions that result from those troubles. When an artist is completely engaged in their art, it's a way to let go of their problems and focus on a moment that truly makes them completely happy. Even if it doesn't last long, even if the song ends or they have to put down their writing or art to attend to something else and return to reality, they've achieved an escape from their suffering. When Sonny is playing the piano, the narrator describes him as having "no battle in his face now", despite all of the suffering he's been through. He cannot escape suffering completely, but nobody can. Suffering is an integral part of life as a human, and no matter how hard anyone tries, they cannot permanently escape it. So, art can do the next best thing; it can provide a peace in the midst of suffering, temporary and yet still powerful enough to save us.
I think art doesn't necessarily save us from suffering, but it does ease the pain that we deal with. Art provides an outlet for us to let our feelings out in a way where we can deal with them. When someone suffers from the anything in their life, no matter what it is, art can take their mind off of it for at least a little while. In the story the author says "freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." This means that the music can release us from all of the suffering our lives cause us if we only listen to it. Sonny is struggling with his drug addiction and music is the only thing that helps him.
I think the whole point of the story is that nothing can save you from suffering. Even though you try your whole life to get away from it you never will. No matter what you do you will have to suffer because you cant love anything without also suffering for it. Sonny tries to convince his brother that he didn't get addicted to drugs because he was a musician. " I don't want you to think this has anything to do with me being a musician", which really it does because music is what he loves, but he wants his brother to accept his life choice and be proud of him. He explains that it's his way of coping with the one thing he really loves. The more you love something the more you will suffer which might be why his brother thinks it's the music, because he doesn't have an inanimate thing like that he loves so much. He does have Grace, his daughter who died, to make a connection, because the fact that he loved her makes him suffer. But especially with art you have to be so connected to your emotions that it's impossible not to suffer. With some people it's only when they are playing that they are really happy. He has to put everything he has into his music, "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life" but it's what he loves to do and it's the only thing that can get him through his suffering, "Creole and Sonny let out their breath, both soaking wet, and grinning."
I think that art can be a means to and end, and the end depends on who you are. Some people find relief from suffering in art, the beauty or abstractness a distraction. Others find their relief in making the art, pouring their sadness into the art and finding peace while they carve their masterpiece from nothing.
I believe that art can not end suffering, but it can relieve it for a while. In my opinion, the various different art forms provide escapes from pain or suffering. It doesn't completely take away our pain, but it distracts us and helps us to turn that suffering into something beautiful, like a painting or a song. We see an example of this in the story "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." This shows us that Sonny's and his audiences' suffering was relieved because of the music, but then later it says "and I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky," which shows us that this moment won't last (the relief was temporary).
Opposite of what Presley said, I actually think that the whole point to the story was to show that art can be an escape from suffering. "And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death, it can live forever. I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it." At this point he even talks about how to music moved him from those dark times. I didn't make him forget, but the music still moved on the same way he could now be delivered. He even said "passing through death, it can live forever" as if art can conquer death itself. "I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise... Then it was over." I think this is his own way of addressing not only the song being over, but how he'd began to have a new start, how the suffering is over. Art can't erase the suffering. Writing a story or listening to a song won't take away the things that have happened, but they do allow the ugliness and pain to be told and explained in a way that can allow people to move on and free themselves from what they've been through. A lot of times people just want to express things in a way other people can feel, and once someone else understands, we don't feel so alone. People write and sing and play instruments to find beauty in bad situations, and turn the ugly into something wonderful.
Based on Sonny's Blues, I don't think art can save us from suffering. Often, art reminds you of the suffering that you are in. Even if it is a distraction for the time that you are making it, once you step back and look at what you have created, it makes you think about the suffering. Take, for example, the moment when Sonny is playing the piano. It reminds the narrator of the tough times that have been going on. He "[sees] the moonlit road where [his] father's brother died... [he] felt Isabel's tear's again, and [he] felt [his] own tears begin to rise. The art, in this case, actually brings out the pain. The emotional flow of the art can remind people of anything, especially bad times and suffering.
I believe that art can provide us with an escape from our suffering but not necessarily save us.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of this "short" story Sonny plays the piano at the bar. At first, he does not play well; he hasn't played in over a year. We see him struggling with himself during this scene.
"Sonny moved, deep within, exactly like someone in torment. I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, an ivory. while there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out it to try; to try and make it do everything."
This makes it seem like even though Sonny is playing the piano he is suffering with it. However, after this first set ends and Creole launches into a new one Sonny gets his groove back. He plays with his soul.
"Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played. Every now and then one of them seemed to say, amen. Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life."
To me, this makes it clear that you can loose yourself in the arts (with the piano in Sonny's case) however you can never loose yourself completely as the artist.
"Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did."
This statement makes it clear to me that an artist can escape his or her own suffering but not for long. You can escape for a moment but it is inevitable that you have to come back to reality. So, I believe an artist can escape their suffering but can never truly be saved from it.
Yes, I think art can save us from suffering. When someone plays an instrument or creates a piece of art, they express their emotions and feelings while doing so. While Sonny played the piano his “fingers filled the air with life, his life.” I think it was a way for Sonny to forget about his addiction and the problems he dealt with. “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.” This explains that Sonny played to relieve the audience of their suffering so he could do the same. He forgot about all of his issues. His only focus was on the keys of the piano and the sound that came out.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that art can save you from suffering, but I believe it can be an outlet in which you can try to avoid suffering. Throughout the story, Sonny deals with this idea, and tries to explain it to the narrator. At the end of the story, when Sonny is playing the piano in a band with Creole, I believe the narrator understands this concept. It's easy for the readers to see how music helps Sonny.
ReplyDelete"Listen, Creole seemed to be saying, listen. Now these are Sonny's blues. He made the little black man on the drums know it, and the bright, brown man on the horn. Creole wasn't trying any longer to get Sonny in the water. He was wishing him Godspeed. Then he stepped back, very slowly, filling the air with the immense suggestion that Sonny speak for himself. (P.24)"
It seems that Sonny put his life into his music, and that you can hear his story throughout the music. Personally, I think music helped Sonny, but I don't believe it "saved" him. He still struggles with many of the problems he dealt with before music.
Additionally, later in the piece, I believe the narrator recognizes that Sonny will still have problems later on.
"Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. (PP.24-25)"
Here, the narrator realizes Sonny is helped through music, but he would continue to struggle with Harlem until his death. His suffering would clearly stay with him throughout his life, although music served as a supportive outlet.
In my opinion, art cannot save you from suffering. However, I believe it can ease the suffering or provide an escape for a little while. Suffering is inevitable; its part of life, but art can make it more bearable. When people perform art or create art, they become completely absorbed. This takes them out of their own mind and provides an escape from the world. It is something they can control and predict in a world full of constant, unpredictable, uncontrollable change. An example of this is when Sonny is playing at the bar with Creole at the end of the story. "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. (pg.23)" Sonny is able to control this music even though he can't control his life and can't get out of Harlem. An example of how it helps the artist escape the world is in the same place, once Sonny actually starts playing. "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. (pg.24)" Sonny gets lost in they music and makes it his own which helps him momentarily escape from his uncontrollable life. He is no longer sad and he is in no rush; He is just there to play as long as he can.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do believe that art can be an escape for some people. I don't think it can save everyone from their suffering, but it can help others. Sonny is a unhappy character with issues. Once we first met Sonny, we found out that he likes music a lot. He would listen to the same record over and over for days until he got a new one. His dream was to be a musician; a pianist. He wanted to play with jazz musicians. We never find out if Sonny is good until the last page or two of this short story. Once he enters the club, Creole talks to Sonny. Then Sonny walks up to the piano, some people start to cheer and get excited. Everyone knew who he was, "I was in Sonny's world. Or rather: his kingdom…. his veins bore royal blood." After Sonny first started playing, he wasn't keeping up with the beat because he was rusty. Soon he warmed up and "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life." Sonny was unhappy over the course of this short story. After playing the piano the way he did, he became truly happy. "He could help us to be free if we would listen." Sonny helped make others happy. At the same time, he was making himself happy because of the piano.
ReplyDeleteI would not say that art can save us from suffering because salvation would imply something permanent while the relief art gives is only temporary. During the time that a person creates art, they can avoid suffering temporarily because they are so invested into making something magical that they forget all there pains for just a short moment. This is not salvation from suffering because after you have finished creating art, you will at some point suffer again, and in some ways this is worse because you have come to know what it is like to not suffer. On page 24 in Sonny's Blues, the narrator says this about music, "For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." At its root, the narrator is talking about how music, or any art, is a light to us in the darkness, which means that art can save us temporarily. Sadly, like any earthly light, it will fade and go away with time.
ReplyDeleteAs I return to my room with a mind thinking of the many problems I currently face, I spot my guitar across my room. The rose wood catches the light from the depressing lamp above yet it glares at me begging to be played. As I stride towards the guitar and play the chords the sound echoes. It echoes through my troubled mind and leaves my body with the sigh of relief. In my opinion music is a way to save a person from their sufferings for the time being. Sonny playing piano is also a prime example of this because he has gone through much more than I. Music is a place of retreat but sadly it does not diminish the problem, it only masks it. An example from the text is when Sonny takes hold of the improvised jazz song, all his stress and troubles seem to have left. His little glance towards his brother after taking a sip from the cocktail on his piano shows signs of relief, but the problem of his addictions to drugs and the whereabouts of his future are unknown.
ReplyDeleteI don't think art can fully save us from suffering, but art can most definitely save us from suffering to some extent. Through art, people and authors are able to express their feelings abstractly without having to use words (sometimes) or explain themselves very much. It can help relieve some stress we get from the suffering happening in life and expressing that and sharing it by telling a story through art. I also think art can help relieve some suffering because it allows one to be unrestricted in their art form and let go off what they are suffering from/about.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't think art can fully save oneself from suffering. Art can potentially relief some suffering, but I don't think it can always get rid of the suffering. The art created ultimately won't change what goes in the real world (most of the time). It'll just help relieve pain, but won't take away the root cause of the sufferings.
For example, in "Sonny's Blues", Sonny's art form, music, allowed him to express how he suffered from being locked in Harlem, his sufferings from heroin addiction and jail, and the sorrow his family faced. The art of the jazz music allowed him to let out his emotions and reduce the sufferings, but it never could ultimately solve the cause of those sufferings.
Yes, after reading “Sonny’s Blues” I do believe that art can save us from suffering. In this 25-page short story, Sonny does this exact deed. He is having troubles in his life with drugs and is living surrounded by a shady group of people. But during this troublesome time he picks up a for blues music on the piano. This passion helps him forget his problems and just enjoy his life. For example in the story it says,
ReplyDelete“Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth”. (P.24-25)
This quote shows how Sonny gets relief from his problems when he was playing the piano and how he felt relieved. It took him away from his problems and temporarily took him away from his suffering. This shows how an art form that is special to someone can help save him or her from his or her torment.
In my opinion, art cannot completely save someone from suffering. Everyone has different ways of getting their emotions out. Some people read, some people eat, some people write, or some people, like Sonny in "Sonny's Blues", play the piano. All these outlets only help distract people and make them forget about their problems for a temporary amount of time, but they will never completely heal someone. People become desperate to constantly utilize the outlets in order to make the pain go away. In "Sonny's Blues", Sonny even says "Sometimes you'll do anything to play [the piano], even cut your mother's throat." Eventually the people realize that outlets will never cure someone fully. This realization can possibly worsen the depression. I think that is one of the reasons Sunny resorted to using drugs; he realized that playing the piano would never permanently cure him. Using drugs is a stronger (but dangerous) attempt to avoid facing your problems for good. However, even drugs will not cure you permanently. All in all, I do not believe that music can save people from suffering, just help people temporarily escape.
ReplyDeleteBased on "Sonny's Blues," I do not believe that art can save us from suffering in the end. I do think that short term art is a great way to relieve suffering but that only serves as a quick-fix and pretty soon after stopping we feel just as alone and suffer just as we did before. On page 20 the narrator says, and Sonny agrees, "But there's no way not to suffer-is there? This shows that we all suffer and nothing can help us stop it for an extended amount of time.
ReplyDeleteArt can sometimes even cause suffering whether it be to create a better product or just a result of the art itself. Some of the world's greatest artist went through extreme suffering from mental illness to drug addictions like Sonny, their art may have provided an outlet but ultimately could not save them.
On page 20, Sonny says, "Some guys, you can tell from the way they play they on something all the time. And you can see that, well, it makes something real for them."
This shows that some artists actually suffer as a result of their art.
When I first read this, I immediately thought of MIMS (music is my savior) so I have to say yes. However, maybe not save us, but distract us. But in the end, isn't that the same thing? At the end of the story, it says "freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." (p.24) I love that the story wraps up with this scene. Throughout the story there is death, drugs, and many other horrible things, but by ending with music, that is what you walk away with. Music brought everyone together and gave off the feeling that everything's going to be alright.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion art can save certain people from suffering, meaning those who enjoy art or are passionate about it. In Sonny's case I definitely think art saved him for multiple reasons. First of all, when he played the piano it was as if he was in his own world where nothing else mattered and all of his problems were solved. For example, in the text it said, "And the face I saw on Sonny I'd never seen before. Everything had been burned out of it, and, at the same time, things usually hidden were being burned in, by the fire and fury of the battle which was occurring in him up there." This quote explains Sonny's passion for playing music, especially jazz/the blues. The piano is his escape and for other people it could be different, but art certainly does not save us all. You need to be passionate about it in order for art to "save" you from your troubles. However, art is just Sonny's temporary escape because when he stops playing, he has to face the harsh reality of life.
ReplyDeleteI believe that art can save you from suffering because it will give that person a sense of freedom and way to express how there feeling if they cant quite put it in words for others to understand. For instance if someone is mad they would create a up tempo high octave piece of music to listen to or an artist might pant a sad picture with a lot of dull colors and and mournful,sad, depressing image to put you in the mood he was in while creating his piece. In the short story this is exemplified when big brother say to sonny "you know people can't always do what they want to do?'' I used this quote because sonny at this point doesn't have away to express him self or a way to get things off his mind legally. At first he used heroin until he went to jail now it seems like he will use the piano to express him self and apparently he becomes very good and this form of art and at the same time expressing his feelings through music.
ReplyDeleteI think that art can temporarily reduce someone's suffering. At the same time, a lot of very talented musicians and artists create such amazing art because of their suffering, like Edgar Allen Poe. However, I do not think that it can permanently save people from suffering. For example, in the short story, "Sonny's Blues," Sonny's pain finally seems to be relieved by his music. But at the end of the story, once he has finished playing a phenomenal solo on the piano, a waitress brings him a drink, which his brother refers to as "the very cup of trembling." By saying this, I felt like Sonny's brother was trying to show that even though Sonny seems to have finally been relieved of his constant suffering through his music, he will never overcome his alcohol and drug problem. I also think that art relieves other peoples' suffering more so than the artist's. In the end, I think that art is a way for a lot of people to express their true emotions and feelings, but I do not think that it can permanently relieve someone of their suffering.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that art can save you from suffering. It provides an opportunity to express your emotions and feelings in a non-destructive manner. Often times art can also provide a community. Being surrounded by fellow artists can help keep goals in perspective. Also, having people who understand you around you creates a support group that can keep you from feeling alone. Art allows something positive to come from something negative, light to come from darkness. In the story, Sonny creates art from pain when he plays the piano- "It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around in us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through," In this passage, you can tell how cathartic playing the piano is for Sonny. Art is a way of expressing one's innermost secrets, and it cleanses people of their suffering.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that art necessarily saves you from suffering, but rather that it provides an outlet for people to deal with their suffering, to separate themselves from their suffering and turn it into something tangible and beautiful. Similar to what we talked about with a genius separate from an artist, I think that art allows the artist to look at their suffering in the face and be able to deal with it, because they are able to distance themselves from it and capture it in artistic form. However, this process is obviously scary and painful and causes its own suffering in the process (Sonny tells his brother he did drugs NOT just because he is a musician.) As for those listening or looking at the art the artist has captured their suffering in and suffered over, they are not able to fully appreciate the heart and soul that has gone into the work. Therefore, someone is able to escape their own worries through other's art, because they are not trying to master their own suffering like the artist is but rather just escape their own. This is demonstrated at the end of Sonny's Blues, when Sonny plays the piano at a bar for the first time. The narrator says,
ReplyDelete"All I know about music is that not many people ever hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear... 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... what is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant too, for that same reason."
I think that art can help ease some of the suffering felt by the artist. By letting out all of his feelings through his musical skill, Sonny no longer has to worry about the pent up feelings he has had to deal with while detoxing. However, this is only a temporary feeling; many new emotional feelings arise everyday, filling the the recently emptied space. However, this expression could become a profitable career, leading him down a darker path or out of the the life he tried to escape years before. There comes a point for Sonny when music is "life or death to him." Music is his way of life, as shown in the club while his brother watching in awe as his brother reveals his emotions through his music. Sonny's music is a way of taking the weight of his feelings off of his shoulders. But until he can find a permanent solution to dealing with his emotions, this will remain only a temporary outlet.
ReplyDeleteI believe that art can save us from suffering, at least temporarily. When an artist's art is the most important thing in the world to them and they're completely absorbed in playing music or writing or working on a painting or drawing, nothing around them matters. Art provides an escape from the troubles the artist deals with in daily life, as well as an outlet for the emotions that result from those troubles. When an artist is completely engaged in their art, it's a way to let go of their problems and focus on a moment that truly makes them completely happy. Even if it doesn't last long, even if the song ends or they have to put down their writing or art to attend to something else and return to reality, they've achieved an escape from their suffering. When Sonny is playing the piano, the narrator describes him as having "no battle in his face now", despite all of the suffering he's been through. He cannot escape suffering completely, but nobody can. Suffering is an integral part of life as a human, and no matter how hard anyone tries, they cannot permanently escape it. So, art can do the next best thing; it can provide a peace in the midst of suffering, temporary and yet still powerful enough to save us.
ReplyDeleteI think art doesn't necessarily save us from suffering, but it does ease the pain that we deal with. Art provides an outlet for us to let our feelings out in a way where we can deal with them. When someone suffers from the anything in their life, no matter what it is, art can take their mind off of it for at least a little while. In the story the author says "freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." This means that the music can release us from all of the suffering our lives cause us if we only listen to it. Sonny is struggling with his drug addiction and music is the only thing that helps him.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole point of the story is that nothing can save you from suffering. Even though you try your whole life to get away from it you never will. No matter what you do you will have to suffer because you cant love anything without also suffering for it. Sonny tries to convince his brother that he didn't get addicted to drugs because he was a musician. " I don't want you to think this has anything to do with me being a musician", which really it does because music is what he loves, but he wants his brother to accept his life choice and be proud of him. He explains that it's his way of coping with the one thing he really loves. The more you love something the more you will suffer which might be why his brother thinks it's the music, because he doesn't have an inanimate thing like that he loves so much. He does have Grace, his daughter who died, to make a connection, because the fact that he loved her makes him suffer. But especially with art you have to be so connected to your emotions that it's impossible not to suffer. With some people it's only when they are playing that they are really happy. He has to put everything he has into his music, "Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life" but it's what he loves to do and it's the only thing that can get him through his suffering, "Creole and Sonny let out their breath, both soaking wet, and grinning."
ReplyDeleteI think that art can be a means to and end, and the end depends on who you are. Some people find relief from suffering in art, the beauty or abstractness a distraction. Others find their relief in making the art, pouring their sadness into the art and finding peace while they carve their masterpiece from nothing.
ReplyDeleteI believe that art can not end suffering, but it can relieve it for a while. In my opinion, the various different art forms provide escapes from pain or suffering. It doesn't completely take away our pain, but it distracts us and helps us to turn that suffering into something beautiful, like a painting or a song. We see an example of this in the story "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did." This shows us that Sonny's and his audiences' suffering was relieved because of the music, but then later it says "and I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky," which shows us that this moment won't last (the relief was temporary).
ReplyDeleteOpposite of what Presley said, I actually think that the whole point to the story was to show that art can be an escape from suffering. "And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death, it can live forever. I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it." At this point he even talks about how to music moved him from those dark times. I didn't make him forget, but the music still moved on the same way he could now be delivered. He even said "passing through death, it can live forever" as if art can conquer death itself. "I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise... Then it was over." I think this is his own way of addressing not only the song being over, but how he'd began to have a new start, how the suffering is over. Art can't erase the suffering. Writing a story or listening to a song won't take away the things that have happened, but they do allow the ugliness and pain to be told and explained in a way that can allow people to move on and free themselves from what they've been through. A lot of times people just want to express things in a way other people can feel, and once someone else understands, we don't feel so alone. People write and sing and play instruments to find beauty in bad situations, and turn the ugly into something wonderful.
ReplyDeleteBased on Sonny's Blues, I don't think art can save us from suffering. Often, art reminds you of the suffering that you are in. Even if it is a distraction for the time that you are making it, once you step back and look at what you have created, it makes you think about the suffering. Take, for example, the moment when Sonny is playing the piano. It reminds the narrator of the tough times that have been going on. He "[sees] the moonlit road where [his] father's brother died... [he] felt Isabel's tear's again, and [he] felt [his] own tears begin to rise. The art, in this case, actually brings out the pain. The emotional flow of the art can remind people of anything, especially bad times and suffering.
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