Questions for Paragraph 2, pick ONE to write your thoughtful reaction.
1. What statement does the story make about the relationship of art to life or about the relationship of art to suffering?  Explain.

2.  Explore the intersections between the effects of drug use, music and religion in “Sonny’s Blues.”

3. Toward the end of the story, as he is trying to explain his addiction to heroin and his passion for music, Sonny tells the narrator that everyone tries to find a way not to suffer, even the narrator himself.  What are the narrator’s ways of coping with his pain and fear?

4. How would you describe the tone of the ending?  What sort of resolution (if any) does the story or the narrator come to?  Does the narrator express optimism?  Pessimism?  Something in between?  Explain.

5. Do Sonny and his brother change in this story?  If so, what do you identify as the catalyst for their changes and where do we see these changes?  If not, how can you tell that they remain stagnant?

6. In what respects is this story and comment on the ways in which “Sonny’s Blues” is a retelling, revision or modernization of the Cain and Abel story in the Bible?

7.  What is the “cup of trembling” referred to in the last line?  How does this Biblical allusion work to help the reader understand what will or has happened to Sonny, his brother, their family and their community?