“I think people ought to do what they want to do, what else are they alive
for. (49)” This thought is what is reflected in both “Sonny’s Blues” by
James Baldwin and “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather. Both Baldwin and Cather
illustrate the problem of a young man growing up and taking on the
responsibility of finding out who they are and what they want out of life. In
these stories the theme is most prevalent, developing the story and helping the
reader form their own opinions on how they feel about their own individuality.
No matter how hard someone tries to decide someone’s life, it is up to the
individual to decide what kind of life they want to live. In “Sonny’s
Blues” Sonny was the youngest child in his family and after his parents died
when he was young his big brother made a promise that he would look after him.
Unfortunately, Sonny chooses the wrong path at first and gets involved in drugs
and has to go to a rehabilitation center to get better. After he gets out his
brother asks him “What do you want to do?”(47), to which Sonny replies
“I’m going to be a musician. (47)” Sonny’s brother doubts his
aspirations from the beginning and even tells himself that “(he) never played
the role of the older brother quite so seriously before (47).” Sonny’s
brother is a teacher and you can tell by his instincts how much he want to teach
Sonny things about life in general. By playing the “roles” of parent, big
brother, and teacher, Sonny’s brother constantly stresses how he wants his
brother to turn out. In the end Sonny’s brother should have listened to
himself when he told his mother that “(Sonny is) a good boy and he’s got
good sense (45)” so that he would of trusted Sonny more to make his own
decisions. In “Paul’s Case” Paul was the only child in his family and
because his mother died he has only his father’s influence on his life. We
join Paul in the story while he is getting in trouble, much like how Sonny was
in trouble at first. Much like “Sonny’s Blues” Paul sees himself facing
his teachers and they are questioning him as to why he was misbehaving. At one
point a teacher inquires about a remark that Paul had made, Paul replied, “I
didn’t mean to be polite or impolite either. I guess it’s a sort of way I
have about saying things regardless. (401)” The teacher influences in the
stories feel dissatisfied with their influences on the boys, but they are not
taking into account that they cannot force these boys to grow up faster than
they want to grow up themselves. They can only hope to point them in the right
direction. “Sonny’s Blues” sets the story in Harlem, New York. The city of
Harlem does a lot to develop how the theme of the story influences Sonny. Sonny
grew up around drug dealers in what would be thought of as the typical
low-income slum of the city. Sonny does experience the life of his peers,
getting involved in drugs and going to the rehab center. Sonny did not let this
affect the outcome of the rest of his life, he learned from his mistakes,
thought about what he did while he was in rehabilitation and decided on a better
path for his life. Paul attended Pittsburgh High School and where he lived had
made him already decide on a better life for himself. He was very conscious of
his surroundings and didn’t like the life on “Cordelia Street.” Every time
he came home “he experienced the physical depression, the loathing of
respectable beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors,” he
hated Cordelia Street. Paul in his story seems to think about his life more than
Sonny, this is evident whenever he steps foot onto Cordelia street. “The
nearer he approached the house, the more absolutely unequal Paul felt to the
sight of it all; his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold bathroom with the grimy
zinc tub, the cracked mirror…(405).” He wanted a different life, and had
always planned escape Cordelia Street and achieves the life he wanted. Sonny
decided that he wanted to be a musician, and the distraction of his brother was
not going to stop him in his quest to be one. Once he had a piano to practice on
he did everything possible to reach his goal of performing in a jazz band. But I
thought I’d never hear the end of that piano. At first, Isabel would write me,
saying how nice it was that Sonny was so serious about his music and how, as
soon as he came in from school, or wherever he had been when he was supposed to
be at school, he went straight to that piano and stayed there until suppertime.
And, after supper, he went back to that piano and stayed there until everybody
went to bed. He was at the piano all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Then he
bought a record player and started playing records. He’d play one record over
and over again, all day long sometimes, and he’d improvise along with it on
the piano. Or he’d play one section of the record, one chord, on change, on
progression, and then he’d do it on the piano. Then back to the record. Then
back to the piano. (50-51) Sonny tried so hard to be a musician and at the end
of the story he was living the kind of life he wanted to live and more
importantly made his brother realize that Sonny did learn what his brother had
taught him about life and how to succeed. Paul was a bit younger and had
different circumstances that stopped him from completely reaching his goals.
With the money he went to New York and stayed in a hotel and dined extravagantly
and basically lived like he had always seen how the soprano’s that came to
Carnegie Hall lived. Paul had went to school and told his classmates of how well
he knew these members of the stock company and when his classmates were
obviously bored with the stories, he would tell his wild dreams of how he was
“going to travel for a while; going to Naples, to Venice, to Egypt (408).”
At the end of the story with Paul’s quest to “find himself” coming to an
end with himself sleeping on railroad tracks, he is awakened by an approaching
train. Right when the train was about to hit him he jumps and flashing
“through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue Adriatic water, the
yellow of Algerian sands (414-415)” this signified that he had experienced his
fantasy of living the life that he wanted. Overall, both stories reflect how
people have their lives influenced from different sources. In "Sonny's
Blues" Sonny was influenced by his brother, Harlem, and his love for music.
In "Paul's Case" his father, his teachers, Cordelia Street, and his
love for the good life influenced Paul. Ultimately, both boys made the right
choice in deciding what kind of life they wanted for themselves and limited the
influence from other places.