1. The story is told from Sonny’s older brother’s point of view. Obviously Sonny’s brother is against the use of drugs as far as he and his family are concerned, but doesn’t seem to worry too much about others so when he speaks of his brothers drug use its in a harsh tone but at the same time a worried tone. His military days made him seem like he looked for more structure and at first was skeptical about his brothers career choice but by the end of Sonny’s set at The Village he really felt the music his brother was creating and began to understand his brother that much more.
2. Sonny’s brother was a soldier and a teacher. Both of these professions require discipline and both seem to dictate structure and control and Sonny’s brother portrays all of this in the story especially when his mother dies and he is left in charge.
3. If Sonny told this story the fact that his brother was a teacher or soldier would not have been as important and the entire message might have been lost.
4. The story starts off about Sonny’s brother going to jail for drugs and continues into Sonny’s brother promising his mother he would take care of Sonny and seems to fail in that one responsibility.
5. Sonny’s mother asks his oldest brother to keep his eye on Sonny and keep him safe. He at first doesn’t seem to succeed at this task since his brother was busted by police but in the end he does help Sonny keep safe and supports him in his career path.
6. By not naming any characters and giving Sonny a John Doe kind of name, the author is presenting this story as something that happens on a regular base and also as something that can happen to anyone.
7. Jazz is not about playing what other people have played or following those little black marks on a sheet of music, rather it’s about playing what’s in your heart by looking deep into your soul and pulling out that pain and making something beautiful out of it and Sonny takes all of his hardships and all of his love for his family and puts it into his piano playing for everyone to hear.
A Worn Path
1. The story is told from the third person point of view because the narrator is not a character but more of an onlooker telling people what he sees.
2. A phoenix is mythical bird that catches fire when it dies and is reborn from the ashes. Like the bird Phoenix Jackson rises to the occasion to take care of her grandson.
3. By making her delusions seem to be as real as the journey itself Welty produces a story that makes the reader see the emotion strain that is put on Phoenix Jackson and helps us to understand how far people will go for a loved one.
4. The white people in the story seem to lack respect that many have for older people, but since she is black they seem to think of her as uneducated and more uncivilized then they are, and since she is old they seem to think of her a senile and incompetent. The story mentions Natchez Trace which leads me to believe that the story lakes place in Mississippi, Alabama, or Tennessee.
5. She sees the big black dog as strong and fearless. This tells us that she admires uncompromising people even in the face of adversity.
6. The phrase make me believe that she is on a quest and it is part of her duty to sit and wait for the medication for her grandson without looking for sympathy or pity.
