Human Emition vs. Ambiguity and Aesthetics - 618 Words

â€Å"Words and Music: Narrative Ambiguity in ‘Sonny’s Blues,† by Keith Byerman is a critical analysis of the narrator’s discourse in â€Å"Sonny’s Blue.† Byerman argues that the use of language necessarily proves limitations. Byerman states that a â€Å"resolution can be accomplished† 1 when the message is â€Å"received or code is decipher in most case the message is withheld in some manner-through deception, innocence, or ignorance until a key moment in the narrative.† He supports this argument by pointing out how inconsistent or even misreading the narrator is, because of his incapability to read the surrounding situation of Sonny. Byerman argues that the narrator is â€Å"caught in the prison house of language.† 1 This may come from a philosophical stand†¦show more content†¦This shows the innocence of the narrator and the distance he has with his family from being enlisted in the army. Most children do no t sit and ponder the inevitability that parent’s die and brother/sisters can be persuaded to go in the direction of drug addiction. (1) â€Å"While music is changed to language, with the attendant change in meaning and while the obsession is still with bringing light and thus reason, the narrator is opening up the meaning with reference to â€Å"we† and to the emotional conditions of suffering and delight.† 1 This is the key moment where the message does become clear to the narrator is the end when the narrator steps into Sonny’s environment and watches him play the piano in a bar. Sonny’s music becomes the only way he communicates. While others do not understand this form of communication, the narrator misunderstand this more than anyone in the story. The discussion the narrator has with Sonny of their mother’s death is apparent the distance the two characters have between each other. At the end of the story, the narrator finally listens to Sonny play and sees the form of communication that he could never understand. Byerman argues that underlying aesthetic is the misreading’s of art and language without sufficient evidence. The evidence that Byerman gives, involves more emotion and the thoughts of a young man growing into an adult in the streets of Harlem. Byerman takes a look at the short Story without the thought of