Name : Sanjaya

Reg. No : 120705024

The experience of American black and the impact of the experience on individual as
portraited in Sonnys Blues and Looking for Mr. Green

I. Background

As we know, American blacks are considered as the minority in US. They are treated so bad
by the whites. White people do not consider blacks as similar class with them. They are
belonged to lower class. Those whole taught just because how blacks arrived to US land for
the first time. They came only for work as slave or coolies for plantation. Up to nowadays,
there is still a stereotype that blacks are very low class. Although the President of US are
blacks now, the stereotype is still in. There is still a segregation of black. However, many
blacks are still isolated and frustrated.

For this frustration, Black has lack identity. American black frustrated seeing the social
condition. Their life are so pity. Most of black using drugs for their run away. They have no
choices that their environment is so limited. They trapped in drugs and poverty. Their
psychology are in danger. Such there are no place for them to be free in life. American blacks
also has ethnic prejudice to the white. This condition is portraited in story Sonnys Blues
and Looking for Mr. Green.

a. Sonnys Blues

Sonny was lived in Harlem. He had always been a good boy. He was wild but he was not
crazy. From a young age, Sonnys life is haunted of being poor, black, and trapped within the
confines of his community. He struggles to defy the stereotypes by moving away from
Harlem. Sonnys struggles within a larger context, situating him within the poverty, crime,
and drug abuse that plague the entire community. His environment forced him using drugs
for his run away. He ever jailed because of selling heroin. Sonny admits that the reason he
wanted to leave Harlem after his mothers death was to escape his increasingly serious drug
addiction.
Why should Harlem for the setting of story?
In the post-World War II era, Harlem ceased to be home to a majority of NYC's blacks, but it
remained the cultural and political capital of black New York, and possibly black America.
The Great Depression of 1929 rocked the country and devastated Black communities such as
Harlem. The pressure of high rents, unemployment and racist practices cumulated in Harlem
riots.In the 1920s and 30s Harlem started to have an impact on the rest of Black America
through ideas, styles, language and culture. It produced for example, some of the most
influential slang in Black America. In both popular and classical music, Blacks became
active, known and self-assertive.

Injecting heroin grew in popularity in Harlem through the 1950s and 1960s, though the use of
this drug then leveled off. In the 1980s, use of crack cocaine became widespread, which
produced collateral crime as addicts stole to finance their purchasing of additional drugs, and
as dealers fought for the right to sell in particular regions, or over deals gone bad.

At a young age also, Sonny decides he wants to grow up to become a musician. For
musicians like Sonny, the freedom of expression that came with bebop was a chance to live
freely, defy social conventions and norms, and create something utterly original. Sonny
begins to explain that heroin and music help him make his suffering his own, which keeps
him from drowning in otherwise overwhelming pain. Sonnys one saving grace is his music,
through which he can express all of his deep-seated longing and frustration. Music is the only
way for Sonny to express himself. One saves Sonny is music. Through music he can express
all of his deep-seated longing and frustration.Sonny continues to talk about the universal
nature of suffering and the ways drugs and music have helped the cope.

The narrator recalls that after his fathers funeral his mother spoke to him about Sonny,
asking him to be, essentially, his brothers keeper. The narrators mother explains that his
father had a brother who was killed one night when drunken white men ran him over with
their car. Her mother reminds the narrator that the world aint changed and makes the
narrator promise to look after Sonny.

Sonnys mother quotation shows that black are in danger. They become the victim of
abusement of white people. Thats why the narrator was given a message from his mother to
look after Sonny. Her mother didnt want Sonny to be a victim of abusement from white.
At the end of the story, the narrator describes a glass sitting over Sonnys piano as shaking
like the very cup of trembling. The cup of trembling is used as a symbol to describe the
suffering and fear that have plagued the people, especially for the blacks.

b. Looking for Mr.Green

A white was ordered to sent a check for Mr. Green in black district. In blacks perception,
they concider that all whites are bad guy. As a white stranger he is suspicious in the black
district where the people would not tell anyone anything. He has difficulties in convincing
people that he is not a cop or bill collector and that he only wants to deliver a check. The
district where Grebe finds himself is a maze of half-collapsed houses, dark small yards, and
dirty allies. The apartments are often crowded with as many as twenty people who sometimes
even use the beds in shifts. As Grebe learns from an Italian grocer, it is a place where people
do all kinds of crimes and abominations without even police being able to stop them from it.

It is similar theme in Sonnys Blues. Blacks have suffered of this condition. In Chicago at
that time, The Great Depression was particularly severe because of the city's reliance on
manufacturing, the hardest hit sector nationally. African Americans were particularly hurt. By
1932, 40 to 50 percent of black workers in Chicago were unemployed. Many unemployed
and frustrated workers took matters into their own hands. The Great Depression saw some of
the most volatile strikes and protest movements in the city's history. There was still
segregation and discrimination to the black.

There is an ironic in this story. Because of stereotype established, the white, Grebe becomes
the victim. As usual we know that black always be the victim of thew stereotype. In this
story, Grebe had to contact to the people who have lack of identity.There is a stereotype of
blacks in America. White claims that blacks are criminal. There is such a bad things for
black. This stereotype makes black in frustration. So they closed theirself for the white
people. In this story, there is such an ethnic prejudice. Prejudice that established by whites or
blacks themself.