Name: _______________________________
Hour: ____________
“Sonny’s Blues”
E9*
Directions: Answer the following questions while reading the story. Write in COMPLETE
SENTENCES! No credit will be given for answers not written in complete sentences.
1.
Who is the narrator in relation to Sonny? What does he do?
2.
Where does the story take place?
3.
The narrator states, “These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were
growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual
possibilities. They were filled with rage” (2). Who is he referring to here and what does it say
about the condition of life for the narrator, Sonny, and these boys?
4.
Why does the narrator not like the man who comes to tell him about Sonny?
5.
Why does Sonny’s friend feel guilty about Sonny getting busted?
6.
Look at Sonny’s letter on p. 6-7. What do we learn about Sonny and the family?
7.
The narrator states, “So we drove along, between the green of the park and the stony,
lifeless elegance of hotels and apartment buildings, toward the vivid, killing streets of our
childhood” (8). What can we assume about Harlem during the time the brothers were growing
up?
8.
During the flashback that starts on page 10, the narrator remembers sitting among the
older folks and hearing them talk about the past. He states, “The darkness outside is what the
old have been talking about. It’s what they’ve come from. It’s what they endure. The child
knows that they won’t talk anymore because if he knows too much about what’s happening to
them, he’ll know too much too soon, about what’s going to happen to him” (11). What do you
think the “darkness outside” is?
9.
Why does the mom tell the narrator the story about Sonny and his uncle being killed?
What is she trying to teach him about Sonny?
10.
Which Jazz musician does Sonny admire? Why does this fit Sonny’s character?
11.
When Sonny tells the narrator that he is going to be a musician, they have a debate about
what people should do with their lives. Sonny’s argument is that “people ought to do what they
want to do, what else are they alive for?” (16). Do you agree with him?
12. After the fight with Isabel’s family, where does Sonny go to get out of Harlem?
13.
What is the narrator referring to when he says, “My trouble made his [Sonny’s] real”
(21)?
14.
When the narrator is looking out the window and sees the revival meeting going on in the
street, he states, “the music seemed to soothe a poison out of them; and time seemed, nearly, to
fall away from the sullen, belligerent, battered faces, as though they were fleeing back to their
first condition, while dreaming of their last” (23). How does this quote relate to Sonny?
15.
What does Sonny compare the woman’s voice from the revival meeting to?
16.
What does Sonny say heroin allows him to feel?
17.
Why did Sonny want to get away from Harlem after their mother died?
18.
When Sonny and the narrator go to the club, the narrator describes the place as Sonny’s
“kingdom” (29). What details from the story highlight this claim?
19.
Describe Creole. Who is he and what is his relationship to Sonny?
20.
What do you think the narrator realizes when he hears Sonny play? Read the last 4
paragraphs slowly!!!
21.
How does Sonny’s playing and his brother’s realization at the end mark hope for the
community they come from?