significance of car salesman

            The car salesman, or Pink, has been a very significant person to Sonny. Since Sylvia gives Cloyd most of her attention, Sonny tries to look for that attention but in someone else. Sonny likes hanging out with Pink because he is the one who shows affection and personal interest in him. “This one’s yours, you want it, little brother” (118). Pink started referring to Sonny as “little brother” and takes him out when he’s not selling any cars and later even offers to give Sonny one of his cars. Pink shows understanding about the fact that Sonny doesn’t like Cloyd and that he probably never will, something that Sylvia hasn’t. “And in my experience, and by numbers, you aren’t cozy with your stepdaddy. Am I right?” (119). Sonny doesn’t have many friends so he looks as though he feels so comfortable around Pink because he truly understands him and his frustration to be around Cloyd.

Sonny has always had bad habits so he doesn’t seem to mind Pinks. Since the beginning, Pink would get Sonny to speak out and do what he wanted to do rather than what others told him to do. For example, there was a previous scene where Sonny was asked to cut the weeds but Pink convinces him to go cruising around with him instead of finishing up because he said Sonny didn’t look like he wanted to be doing that anyway. Pink has also been responsible for letting Sonny drink a couple of beers. “…all I need is you to listen for me is all. Be some wide-open ears. I’m speaking of your stepdad…” (139). In this part of the reading, Pink offers to give Sonny a Bel Air, but he doesn’t show much interested in Sonny’s money instead he wants him to listen to what Cloyd has to say about him. He then assures Sonny that what he wants in return for the car “…ain’t no big deal, ain’t nothing, not really nothing, probably nothing” (139) so that Sonny could know that it’s not  big deal.

            Pink doesn’t seem to be sincere about his care for Sonny, I think it’s all an act; an act to win Sonny over so that Pink can get a bigger benefit or even a profit out of it later on. I predict that Pink will be a bad influence for Sonny and he’s probably going to teach Sonny even more bad habits that will cause him to rebel out. I also think that because of Sonny’s new bad life style, a racial war along with other problems will arise. We already know that Cloyd is a racist who hates blacks so I believe that he along with all of his other racist friends, will be the main starters of violence that will occur at The Flowers. The car salesman already asked Sonny to do one of the many jobs he’s probably going to ask him to do, and I’m sure that as the book goes on the innocent jobs will develop to become more and more dangerous. And finally, by the end of the book, Sonny is going to realize the things that are good in his life and he will eventually change his life around to be a better person for both his sake and his mothers.