American Literature / Unit 16 AML 1508 short lesson, about 20 seconds
"Sonny's Blues"
Captions available
The idea
Two brothers, one a mathematics teacher and one a musician recently out of jail, barely know each other. The anchor notes that Sonny's troubles are explicit while the narrator's are implicit, so the story's real movement is the teacher's slow admission of his own.
In practice
The narrator's trouble is the hidden one.
Where people slip
The teacher is the story's subject too.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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