As soon as i began reading this story it interested me. The first sentence makes you want to keep reading. "I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my way to work." It made me want to know what he read, and why it would be everywhere. I immidiatly realized that the story was mostly on family. Family related stories are my favorites becuase i like to relate them to my family and i like to read about other families that are so completly different from mine.
The man in the beginning was strange, the one that was friends with Sonny when they were younger. The way he talked was mysterious, it was lke he could talk in a way so that he gets what he wants.
Something interesting that i found in the beginining was when he said that there were two types of laughter, the type that people relate with children, then the type that was mocking. That made me think about the way people laugh, it is so true, you can defenitly tell the difference between the two. With the child laughter you can here the fun in it, you can tell that it is carefree. The mocking laughter seems to be done mostly with teenagers i have noticed. It is not a laugh out of pure funness and the joyness in something, it is the laughter at someone.
It was also difficult in the beginining to tell whether or not Sonny was alive, they didnt really say anything on the subject, they were saying things like "hung" but also "to help him" so i wasnt sure if he had literaly been hung, but then realized he was still alive.
All in all this story was really touching, hearing about the family members that had died, seeing everyone help out sonny, and relating music into it. The part about the young daughter that died was very sad and well written, it was like you could picture it while it was happening, which made it even more real, which also made it even more powerful and hurtful.
I would love to read more stories by James Baldwin. This has been my favorite out of all the Haunted House stories so far.
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8 comments:
I agree with most of what you said Caleigh. I also like to read stories about families and relate them to my own. The beginning of this story drew me in but I thought the beginning of the story was really slow. Howerver, you seemed to focus more on the beginning of the story. I enjoyed reading your opinion on this story and my view of it has been shifted a little bit.
i know that hre was a friend of Sonny's but I am not sure of the significance of his short appearance in the story. We were never informed of who he was or of any backround information. He was most defiantely a man of mystery.
Also, the narrator's decription of his daughter's death was very precise. I could almost hear her Isabel's scream and clearly picture the tears rolling down her face. It was a traumatic and siginificant event in the way that it instigated the narrator to contact Sonny again.
Definitely. I noticed that to with the difference between laughters. I think that's pretty sad that some people can't laugh out of purity. Also, I think that Sonny's old friend was in a way a catalyist for Sonny's brother. I think that he the friend changed Sonny's brother's view on Sonny and made him want to see how he was doing. It's like the friend helped the brother want to talk to Sonny.
I like what you have to say about the story. I also agree with the laughter part and how there are two types of laughter. I have frequently heard these two types. I must say that laughter is the cure for the soul. I don't understand why people equate laughter with children when children are as evil as the rest of us.
i like that you pinpointed one part of a detail...the laughter. I thought it was interesting that you said the laughter of teenagers was mostly at someone, do you think that could be a mask for insecurities? Laughter can tell people so much about underlying emotion, and i think that pertains to this story as well. the brother was hiding a lot of emotions, that were ultimately let out by Sonny
The whole paragraph about laughter was definetly true. I noticed it in the text, but your explanation about the two different types of laughter made it very clear to me. I can picture a little baby in my head and how cute it is.
Sometimes i think the laughter of teenagers is to hide insecurities, but sometimes i think it is just becuase teenagers are mean. All of us have our insecurities, and none of us really truly know who we are or what we're about yet. But teenagers can be really really mean and they laugh at one another so that no one notices there faults and so no one can have reasons to laugh at them too.
I agree 100% you. I wanted to know what the narrator was reading and why it related to him. the types of laugher are so true. But the mocking laugher is being found in kids younger now.
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