Professor H. Salsich
English 02
19 September 2008
TS: Suzy Bernstein Goldman is a very observant writer, who makes a lot of favorable and meaningful connections easy to follow, because of her organization skills in writing. SD: She had a lot of points that she made that were to my liking and she was very well organized when explaining these points. CM: She explains that the story is one of communication between brothers and the language is the music that Sonny plays, she says this at the beginning and, much like our introduction and closing, she states it again at the end. CM: Furthermore she says that “when the narrator finally hears his brother’s sorrow in his music, [he] hears, that is, Sonny’s Blues.” (Goldman).
TS: In addition to making some meaningful point Ms. Goldman broke the story up into sections like the layers of brick and stone of a colossal edifice. SD: She made her essay around the four sections she has created to summarize Sonny’s Blues more thoroughly. CM: Ms. Goldman made a connection between the seemingly normal word “safe” to a quote that Sonny’s father had used to explain that “no place was safe”, which, in turn brought me to the part in the book about Sonny’s past, the only part when Sonny’s father is mentioned. CM: This example showed me how perceptive she must have been when reading the book to take such a simple word and make a “thundering crescendo” (Goldman) of connections from it. SD: The sections she made were easy to follow because she had a clear beginning and end point. CM: She used words that practically shouted beginning and end to the reader. CM: She thrust forth the beginning of a movement by simply saying “the second movement” or “the third movement.” CS: Finally I thought that Ms. Goldman’s essay was a simple display of organization and uncluttered thoughts put on a piece of paper.
TS: My foremost thought of Ms. Goldman’s essay was that it consists of many things that I like including fast words, superb connections, and good points, but to vary my analysis I will explain one thing I liked and one thing I disliked. SD: One thing that I loved was how Ms. Goldman says “but these blues belong to all of us, for they symbolize the darkness which surrounds all those who fail to listen to and remain unheard by their fellow man.” (Goldman). CM: She makes an awesome connection from Sonny’s music to the rest of mankind which was, I think, one of the best parts of her essay. CM: We all need to listen and be heard by others if we continue to ignore each other or hold back our own voices the state that our race is in will not improve; we won’t advance to bigger and better things. SD: One thing that I disliked was contradictory to the simple structure of the essay. CM: In one sentence she uses the word “awkward” to relate to the attitude that the narrator was using when Sonny came to live with his him again. CM: I thought that a college professor should have had more words at her disposal, maybe words like gauche, inelegant, stilted, etc. CS: Compared to all the spectacular things I saw in this essay I would have to say that the word “awkward” was a very simple mistake on Sarah Brandt’s “mistake meter.”
TS: Ms. Goldman did a very good job being observant and perceptive and combining those skills into her writing. SD: I loved many of the things she pointed out and it was easy to follow what she was saying because of how neat she was while explaining them. CM: She summarized the story of a struggle between brothers and how they were brought together by music quite beautifully. CM: I enjoyed Ms. Goldman’s thoughts very much and thought that she made a very powerful essay to be praised by everyone who reads it.
Works Cited
Goldman, Suzy. “James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues’: A Message in Music,” in Negro American Literature Forum, Vol. 8, no. 3, fall, 1974, pp. 231-3
1 comment:
Kyle, I like how you followed the directions and wrote about the things we were sopposed to write about. However, the turquoise on the blue background might be kind of hard to read for some people. It's just a thought, but it might be best if you use a different color next time.
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