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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 which of the following does the narrator compare the drummer?

3. Which of the following songs is sung at the sidewalk revival?

4. How old is Grace when she dies?

5. To what is Sonny’s experience compared?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. How does Isabel realize that Sonny has left?

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Baldwin’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 2

Conversely, given demonstrated efforts toward censorship in a number of countries, what would likely prompt bans of “Sonny’s Blues”? By which groups? Why?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the ending of the story. Does it satisfy? How or how not?

(see the answer keys)

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