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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. Who rails at Sonny about truancy?

2. Approximately how long a gap in performance history did Sonny have before taking the narrator to his performance?

3. On what does Sonny purpose to rely for education?

4. To which of the following does the narrator compare the drummer?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does Isabel realize that Sonny has left?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topic 3

Sources attest to the presence of “Sonny’s Blues” on must-read lists. Assuming that such status reflects popularity, what accounts for the popularity of the short story? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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