Day 1

Sonny's Blues Lesson Plan

Discussion of Thought Questions

  1. 1

    This section of reading ends with the line "My trouble made his real." What does this imply about the reasons the narrator decided to contact his brother?

    The narrator has lived a life that might have been considered exemplary for Black people in the mid-twentieth century north: he finished school, joined the military, married, had children, and became a teacher. We learn from the narrative of the past that he never quite understood his wayward brother, who, while self-disciplined about the music he loved, was a wild person while the narrator was a rule-follower. He doesn't fully understand that Sonny's addiction and suffering might come from something other than "bad...

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