What does the author establish in the scene, how do you know (with quotes), and how does it make the story better later in the narrative?
Name three important things that the author establishes in this scene. Here's a made-up example of the kind of thing I mean: "The author establishes that Michelle has had a college education, and that her boyfriend Tom is a little threatened by that. He seems worried that Michelle might find her new co-worker Bill interesting because they both studied art at NYU." (Again, my example has nothing to do with "Sonny's Blues.")
What specific quotes from the scene back up what you say has been established? Use MLA style citation format for the quotes. Here's an example: "In their conversation, the narrator seems angry that it was Sonny and not the addict who was arrested. He sarcastically asks whether the addict was too smart to get arrested, and the addict replies, ‘I ain't smart,' and then adds, ‘If I was smart, I'd have reached for a pistol a long time ago.'" (60).
Note: Because the passage I am quoting above already has quotation marks in the story, I must change the existing double quotation marks that appear in the original passage to single quotation marks. And then I must add quotation marks on top of that. The reason for this is so the readers will not be confused about which quotations appeared in the original text.
If something important is established in an early scene like this one, there will always be a reason for it. It will be significant later in the story. Keeping in mind what things occur later in the story, why do you think the author has established the things you mention? How do the established things make the story more moving, powerful, or meaningful?