Sonny Blues And The Rich Brother Essay

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“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own” (brainyquotes). In Tobias Wolff “The Rich Brother” and James Baldwin’s “Sonny Blues” it shows how different views of life can be and barrier between understanding one another. When you don’t try to understand another’s point of view, you may miss understanding from a different aspect. In “The Rich Brother” the short story is based on two siblings who live an opposite lifestyle and who cannot understand from the point of view of one another. One brother lives the rich, money hungry life, while the other lives a spiritual and subtle lifestyle. In “Sonny Blues” both brothers grew up the same and have the same outlook of
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In both “Sonny’s Blues” and “The Rich Brother,” both stories have a similarity that each family has lost their parents. When a parent is lost, it become a burden and very stressful to become the head of household. To protect your siblings as if they were one of your children. The loss of their parents symbolize the strength the older siblings have to keep their family together, even when they have loss the base of it all. The refutation of both stories could be interpreted in many different ways. In “The Rich Brother”, the end depicts him finally deciding to be done helping his brother, but could that just be symbolizing acceptance. He could be done providing money and describing his brother as burden, because he has sought understanding of his brother’s point of view. “He smiled to himself like a man at liberty to enjoy music, a man who has finished his work and settled his debts, done all things meet and due.” (Schilb & Clifford 359). The excitement of being done and accepting all Donald’s flaw could be considered the weight off his shoulder. The wrong