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Sonny's blues course notes
SONNY’S BLUES
THESIS STATEMENTS:
-Music can make one’s life worth living
-Guilt can haunt us for a long time
Narrator felt guilty for not being there for Sonny and all...
-addiction to drugs can lead one to a cycle of poverty Sonny’s friend & Sonny himself.
-In some places, addiction is unavoidable
-Passion is a drug
-Music is more than just a passion to some people. To some people it is sometimes a way of life.
-Childhood bonds can last forever
-Everyone feels pains, but everyone deals it in different ways.
Sonny deals with it by drug addiction and through music
His brother deals with it by communicating with his brother. or keeping it all to himself?...
-Music can free a person from the chains of society (such as racism and violence)
-People born in poor neighborhoods will rarely get out of this cycle of poverty.
-Music could bring two non-communicative people together and make them understand each other.

The settings: what changes?
-Subwaynarrator was shocked and felt trapped in the subway. Atmosphere: dirty, dark…
-Classroomsubway onto the classroom: narrator still feels anxious and still trapped..
-Narrator’s house (projects)Felt warm. Isabel. They lost their daughter a year ago, made the narrator write a letter to sonny. Relationship between brothers still a little awkward?
-Jazz club Whole different world, something magic: ‘’it’s like sonny’s kingdom’’—all friends admired him and he possesses musical talents. That is his richness. He rules his kingdom-- power.
Narrator realizes he made a mistake and misunderstood sonny for the past years.
He now knows where sonny belongs to and who he is.
(but then does sonny understand his brother?)

Everyone has a kingdom: you just have to find it
Comparatively to narrator: he does not have any power whatsoever, did not find a kingdom.
-How does the change in settings affect the narrator? The Story overall?
Characterization: narrator’s evolution:
-When the narrator admits he
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