In both "Battle Royal" and "Sonny's Blues," the narrators
are trying to come to some understanding of their identities through their personal
experiences. In "Battle Royal," the narrator is made to take part in a wild boxing
match even though he thought he was going to deliver a speech. The white spectators
laugh and cheer during the event. The narrator remembers the advice of his grandfather
who told him to always "keep up the good fight" meaning that he must stand up for
himself in life. The narrator begins to understand that he is an "invisible man"--a
black man taken advantage of in a white community. The narrator must learn to negotiate
this landscape to foster his own identity.
In "Sonny's
Blues," the narrator tries to understand the actions of his brother Sonny. The two
brothers have always been very different, and the narrator does not understand the life
that Sonny has chosen for himself. Sonny invites his brother to see him play music at a
club, and only once there does the narrator feel the emotion in the music and understand
why his brother chose this difficult life for himself. Sonny has been arrested for drug
use and in and out of jobs, plus his family provides him little support. But Sonny
still continues on this path because it makes him
happy.
So, in the two stories the characters embark on
journeys to establish their identities in the face of hardship.
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