Sonny’s Blues

by

James Baldwin

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Sonny’s Blues makes teaching easy.
Isabel is the narrator’s wife. She is shown to be a kind and understanding person who is happy to take Sonny into their family, despite his troubles. Isabel’s great sorrow was witnessing the agonizing death of their daughter Grace, and she often cries to the narrator about it at night or wakes up with nightmares. Despite having experienced the traumatic loss of a child, she and the narrator seem to have a kind and loving marriage.

Isabel Quotes in Sonny’s Blues

The Sonny’s Blues quotes below are all either spoken by Isabel or refer to Isabel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cycles of Suffering Theme Icon
).
Sonny’s Blues Quotes

I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father’s brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel’s tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Narrator’s Mother, The Narrator’s Father’s Brother, Isabel, Grace
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Sonny’s Blues LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sonny’s Blues PDF

Isabel Quotes in Sonny’s Blues

The Sonny’s Blues quotes below are all either spoken by Isabel or refer to Isabel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cycles of Suffering Theme Icon
).
Sonny’s Blues Quotes

I saw my mother’s face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father’s brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel’s tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Narrator’s Mother, The Narrator’s Father’s Brother, Isabel, Grace
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis: