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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 9 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following does the narrator note having thrown from rooftops?

2. Which of the following does the narrator use as a term for drugs?

3. Along what avenue do the narrator and Sonny travel?

4. In what season does the story begin?

5. At what age had Sonny considered traveling abroad?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the narrator note would happen on Sunday evenings with his parents when someone turned on a light?

2. What are the narrator’s earliest memories of Sonny?

3. Why does the narrator note being glad of Isabel’s presence when he brings Sonny home?

4. Why does the narrator posit his students are full of rage?

5. Why does the narrator note having taken up residence where he did?

6. For what is Sonny arrested?

7. What outcome does Sonny’s old acquaintance foresee for him?

8. Why had the narrator not known he had an uncle?

9. Why does the narrator note that Sonny and his father had not gotten along?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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

Essay Topic 2

What character is the protagonist of “Sonny’s Blues”? How does the short story support such an assertion?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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