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Comparing Love In Sonny's Blues And The Red Convertible

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Love comes in different forms, different styles, and ultimately comes from different emotions. Throughout the stories “The Red Convertible” and “Sonny’s Blues” a love, not loud nor flashy but calm and hidden is shown throughout the relationship of the brothers. Brotherly love is special; it comes from the emotional drive of competition yet, somewhere mixed in this emotion is the desire for one’s brother to succeed. Woven within these stories comes a perspective from which a brother pushes the other to find his passion in life, what drives them daily, what gives them happiness. Shown throughout the stories is a picture of love that each brother possesses for one another. This loving desire displays a beauty and a challenge that each brother must face. However, …show more content…
Ornella d’Souza, a writer for Mother & Baby magazine puts it best as she states, “The bond between siblings is beautiful. This relationship is peppered with fun and laughter, arguments and fists fights, secrets and tears, and affection and innocence”. In “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator shows the reader his frustration for his brother, sonny’s decisions. He also gives us a glimpse for his desire to see sonny succeed. The author writes, “Well I guess it’s none of my business” (126) … “Then I kept in constant touch with him and sent him whatever I could” (127). The reader begins to see a war of emotions taking place in the mind of the older brother. Though he doesn’t want Sonny to be his “business”, Sonny becomes his business because of the inherent brotherly love he has towards him. On the contrary, In the story of “The Red Convertible” Lyman, the younger brother takes on the role of being a guide to assist his older brother in overcome his suffering from PTHD. Though this may seem counter intuitive, d’Souza claims, “While older siblings compete with their younger ones for attention, the younger ones, imitate habits of the older ones leading

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