Marclysa, Rothna, Michael, Karen, Cindy

As a group come up with 2-3 central themes in SB. Find specific passages – textual evidence- in the story that supports that. Discuss how Baldwin is using themes to critique society, and also consider where you see the Freudian concepts. 

Rothna

•  Familial Support
• Music as a way for redemption
• Drug abuse
• Bettering yourself/salvation
• Suffering 

Marclysa

•  Drug addiction (heroin) – his escape from his actual problems 
• Music is his artistic gift (jazz)
• Family issues (his brother) 

Michael

•  Addiction
• Brotherhood
• Music
• Redemption
• Night/darkness as a metephor for things coming to an end

Karen

• Mental health 
•  Depression 
• Society impact 

Cindy

• Racism
• Family Dynamic
• Drugs/Addiction

Textual Evidence

Racism

•  “Your father says he heard his brother scream… ain’t stopped till this day.” (pg. 8)
• “These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.” (pg. 1)

Family

•  “I was scared, scared for Sonny.” (pg. 1)
• “He and Sonny hadn’t ever got too well.And this was partly because Sonny was the apple of his father’s eyes.It was because he loved Sonny so much and was frightened for him that he was always fighting him”(pg.6) 
• “You don’t know how much I needed to hear from you.” (pg. 4)

Drug/Addiction 

•   “Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes” (pg. 15)
• “‘Why does he want to die? He must want to die, he’s killing himself, why does he want to die?’” (pg.3)
• “But the reason I wanted to leave Harlem so bad was to get away from the drugs.And then when I ran away, that’s what i was running from really.When I came back, nothing had changed, I hadn’t changed, I was just older”(pg18)
• “I said ‘I don’t wanna see you die trying not to suffer” (page 17)

Music 

•  “Then they all gathered around sonny and sonny played. Every now and again one of them seemed to say amen” (pg. 20)
• “…it wasn’t like living with a person at all, it was like living with sound. And the sound didn’t make any sense to her, didn’t make sense to any of them – naturally.” (pg.12)
• “The silence of the next few days must have been louder than the sound of all the music ever played since time began.” (pg. 13)

Redemption

• “Then they all came together again, and sonny was part of the family again” (pg. 20)
• “And I didn’t write Sonny or send him anything for a long time… Then I kept in constant touch with him and I sent him whatever I could and I went to meet him when he came back to New York.” (pg. 4)