Essay/Term paper: The demon

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Position Papers

THE DEMON BLACK



The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator"s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world's trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.

I think the main idea the narrators is trying to emphasize is the theme of opposition between the chaotic world and the human need for community with a series of opposing images, especially darkness and light. The narrator repeatedly associates light with the desire to clear or give form to the needs and passions, which arise out of inner darkness. He also opposes light as an idea of order to darkness in the world, the chaos that adults endure, but of which they normally cannot speak to children.

The story opens with a crisis in their relationship. The narrator reads in the newspaper that Sonny has been taken up in a drug raid. He learns that Sonny is addicted to heroin "horse," and that he will be sent to a treatment facility to be "cured." Unable to believe that his once gentle and quiet brother could have so abused himself:

" Sonny had been wild, but not crazy, he had always been a good boy and had never turned hard or evil or disrespectful the way the kids did and still do in Harlem."…His face had been bright and open, there was a lot of copper in it; and he had wonderfully direct brown eyes, and a great gentleness and privacy…." (66).

The narrator cannot reopen communication with Sonny until a second crisis occurs, the death of his daughter from polio. When Sonny is released, the narrator brings him to live with his family.

The narrator remembers his last talk with his mother, in which she made him promise to "be there" for Sonny. Home on leave from the army, he has seen little of Sonny, who was then in school. His mother tells him about the death of his uncle, a story she had kept from him until this moment. His uncle, much loved by his father, was killed in a hit-and-run accident by a group of drunken "Whites," who miscalculated in an attempt to frighten the young man. The pain, sorrow, and rage this event aroused colored his father's whole life, especially his relationship with Sonny, who reminded him of his brother. She tells the narrator this story partly in order to illustrate that there is no safety from suffering in their world as her husband had said:

"…Safe!" my father grunted, whenever Mama suggested trying to move to a neighborhood, which might be safe for children. "Safe, hell! Ain"t no place safe for kids, nor nobody." (72).

The narrator cannot protect Sonny from the world any more than his father could protect his own brother. Such suffering is a demonstration of the general chaos of life out of which people struggle to create some order and meaning. Though suffering cannot be avoided, one can struggle against it, and one can support others in their struggles. Feeling his mother's burden of protector and keeper of his little brother, seems to have always utilized this unconscious defense mechanism. . As the narrative progresses, this is a device that has been used by Sonny and his older brother throughout their relationship.

Following the death of their mother, the first time that the older brother must act out her request, the conversation between him and Sonny is punctuated by the lighting. Beginning openly and honestly, the brothers discuss Sonny's future plans. When Sonny suggests that he dreams of being a musician, tension is created between the two. The narrator, feeling that his authority is being questioned and threatened, displays a tone of contempt, imploring Sonny to "Be serious". He further preaches to his defensive little brother:

"Well, you may think it's funny now, baby, but it's not going to be so funny when you have to make your living at it, let me tell you that." (84).

His lack of understanding and parental scolding increased the unease between them. Eventually the narrator and Sonny try to find an alternative way of making meaning and order. When Sonny invites the narrator to hear him play with a group in Greenwhich Village club, Sonny tries to explain why he took "horse"(66). It was a way to try not to suffer, a way to take control of the inner chaos and to find shelter from outside suffering. Though he knew that ultimately "horse couldn"t work, he also knew that he might try it again. Sonny implied that with some one to listen to him, he may succeed in dealing with " the storm inside" by means of his music:

You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there's not really a living ass to talk to, and there's nothing shaking, and there's no way of getting it out, that storm inside. You can't talk it and you can't make love with it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody's listening. So you've got to listen. You got to find a way to listen, (84).

At the nightclub, the narrator understands what Sonny means when he finally hears him play. He sees that Sonny's music is an authentic response to life. He sees that one who creates music, "is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air." He understands that his brother's music is an attempt to renew the old human story: "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." Having witnessed Sonny's struggle to play "his blues," the narrator recognizes that those blues are mankind's blues, that Sonny's music give`s the narrator and all people a way of finding meaning in their pains and joys. This perception enables the narrator to accept his brother, the life he has chosen, and the risks he must incur.

As the narrator feels united with his brother and, by implication, with all mankind in shared sorrows, he reflects, "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." ( 88 )