RIP TOM. Frank Sanchez

This is one of the stories that I most enjoyed this semester. Amiri Baraka’s short story, “Suppose Sorrow Was a Time Machine”, has a very unique style of writing as the narrator is speaking to his grandfather who passed away.  However, the way the narrator tells the story it seems like if he was actually present when he speaks about his grandfather’s story which make it seem like he did much research in his grandfather’s life. I also enjoyed how much advice the narrator kept giving his grandfather and seemed to have small conversations with him although he wasn’t getting any responses. One more thing I enjoyed about the style of writing was that the narrator was not specific on what was going on. In other words, he said what happened but left in the air for interpretation for example when the narrator describes the burning of the store he doesn’t directly says who but lets the reader figure out who is “they”. I interpreted “they” as white supremacists that were probably trying to run black people out of their town.  Personally I enjoyed how, despite the changes of places and business, Tom (the grandfather) never gave up and always got up despite the vibrations. I started to analysis how the narrator kept describing every location his grandfather had moved to and stated if there was a vibration in the town or not. If we look at the first couple vibrations occurred were in the South and as Tom migrated north the vibrations started to minimize as once he reached Pennsylvania there was no longer any vibrations. The mention of each city that his grandfather migrated goes to prove that the South at time was not a place for African-Americans to live and that freedom was easier in the North. This novel reminds me much of Henderson’s poems about African-Americans struggling in the Lower East of Manhattan. Nonetheless the political structure of the country at the time mirrors Henderson’s poem, the kid, because just as the authorities were harassing the guy walking down the block it shows how society was harassing Tom as he tried to succeed.