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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What color notebook does Sonny carry?

2. To get away from what had Sonny first left Harlem?

3. What message does the narrator posit Creole has for Sonny?

4. Who rails at Sonny about truancy?

5. On what day does Sonny invite the narrator to hear him play?

Short Essay Questions

1. What effect does the narrator notice the sidewalk revival has on its attendees?

2. How does Isabel realize that Sonny has left?

3. What revelation does Sonny report from listening to the sidewalk revival?

4. How does the narrator depict the common experience of hearing music?

5. Why does Sonny make a point of smoking in front of the narrator after his mother’s death?

6. Why does the narrator express misgivings about Sonny going into music?

7. What effect does Grace’s death have on Isabel?

8. How does the narrator depict the performer’s experience of music?

9. What does the narrator perceive Creole asserting “the blues were all about” (47)?

10. Why does the narrator posit that passers-by doubt the holiness of those conducting the sidewalk revival?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

To what genre other than jazz fiction might “Sonny’s Blues” be considered to belong? What in the text supports that identification? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

A lack of formal sectional division in the short story obliges a fairly arbitrary breakdown of the text for purposes of study and discussion. How might the short story be sectioned off other than it currently is? Why might those divisions be appropriate, based on the text and its contexts of composition and reception?

Essay Topic 3

Overall, what is the most important theme of “Sonny’s Blues”? What in the text indicates as much? How does it do so?

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