Write up your notes into full answers and answer the four questions. You do not need an introduction and conclusion for each answer, but discuss your thoughts on the answer and back everything up with as much textual evidence as you can. I would expect 1-1.5 pages for each answer (but that is a ballpark suggestion not an absolute requirement). MLA format. 

1. Suffering is a major theme in “Sonny’s Blues”. What internal and external factors contribute to Sonny’s suffering? How does Sonny’s art/music communicate his pain? How does his pain reflect the suffering of his community? 

2. Illustrate, using textual evidence, how Baldwin uses the themes of light and darkness

to reflect the struggles of Sonny and his brother. 

3. Grace’s death acts as a catalyst for the narrator’s acknowledgement of his pain and the pain around him. How does the narrator’s loss of control in his personal life allow him to understand Sonny as an artist?

4. The end of Sonny’s Blues alludes to a mutual understanding and acceptance between brothers. What textual evidence and Biblical symbolism shows the narrator has forgiven Sonny.