A Book Review in Literature 3 (Luha ng Buwaya) Amado Vera Hernandez

In an enchanting excerpt by Sonia Sanchez christened, “Norma”, Sonia concludes the anecdote by turning away and never agreeing again. Sonia has disagreed to many things, but not to a drug-riddled woman predicting her kids would make it against all odds. However, if one looks deeper into the text, it is clear the gesture displays the author’s opinion on the blatantly rigged system.

The key to unlocking and understanding Marisol by Jose Rivera is in recognizing and examining the 3 different worlds Marisol works her way through over the course of the play. The main character, Marisol Perez, dies in the very first scene and spends the rest of the play trying to pass onto her impending afterlife. Additionally, Marisol is a play about Puerto Rican culture and religion and how it affects not only the life of an individual, but also the death of our main character.

Esperanza, a strong- willed girl who dreams big despite her surroundings and restrictions, is the main character in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza represents the females of her poor and impoverished neighborhood who wish to change and better themselves. She desires both sexuality and autonomy of marriage, hoping to break the typical life cycle of woman in her family and neighborhood. Throughout the novel, she goes through many different changes in search of identity and maturity, seeking self-reliance and interdependence, through insecure ideas such as owning her own house, instead of seeking comfort and in one’s self. Esperanza matures as she begins to see the difference. She evolves from an insecure girl to a

Point of view is important in any novel. It allows readers to see and understand the events and characters in a novel. Depending on who is speaking, point of view can drive the plot and convey the thoughts of the characters in a story. In the novel, The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, point of view plays a crucial role in narrating the life of the lonesome outsider, Oscar. The novel is narrated in first person, but Diaz chooses to disclose who the speaker is until later in the book. As the story progresses, there are clues that hint to the reader who the outside source narrating Oscars life is. Diaz uses Yunior to narrate a majority of the novel. This point of view lets the readers understand the Dominican culture through Yunior’s commentary and perspective. It also gives an outside perspective on Oscar which helps build Oscar as a character. Instead of using an omniscient third person or generic first person point of view, Diaz uses multiple characters to narrate the story. This ingenious idea gave the story a more personal and up close look at not only the life of Oscar, but also the lives of his sister, Lola, and his mother, Beli.

In defining one’s identity, many different factors are considered; such as one’s nationality, characteristic, personality, ability, experience, religion, and etc. Especially for those people who live in America, so called country of immigration, has much more complicated identities than those Asian country people where mixed people are rarely noticed. Thinking about the concept of identity, some people easily categorized themselves as simple factors and terms which could describe their surface; white, black, Asian, European, pretty, ugly, nice, mean and so on and so forth. And that is the most point where majority people stopped to list their identities from exploring more in complicated range. However, there are many people who dig more than common people; one great example would be Denise Chavez, who is the author of the novel called Loving Pedro Infante, who kept asking herself about her identity to approach more accurate and clear ideas. In her work, reader could see the confusion of Tere, the main character of the novel, went through her life as Latin-American female in dealing with finding one’s true identity and how she accept her as who she really is. Denise Chavez, who is obviously Latin-American lady, mirror her own life experience through the character she created and introduce to readers about tough life she lived in America as Mejicana. The main character of this novel have a clear understanding and strong idea about herself throughout the novel, even if

In the book “Joyas Voladoras” by published editor Brain Doyle, Doyle begins talking about humming birds. The heart of a humming bird, and its physical aspects. Doyle then elaborates on the title that it translates to flying jewels, which the first explorers named them. Doyle is talking about life, the center of all living things life, the heart and the different aspects of the heart. The memory that can be stored there, the heartbeats, the size and even how a heart can be broken. Doyle presents his ideas differently but causes the reader to connect emotionally, factually, and fairly personally.

People might have thought of giving a revenge on someone that you really hate, but if the revenge is to kill that person, what would it be like? There is a book named "The Cask of Amontillado" which handles this kind of subject. This book seemed to be a fiction, and is this book a literary or commercial fiction? While I was reading the text, I thought the plot, characters, and the theme was more towards the literary fiction. As I read this book, the unique plot and the first person of the protagonist is the narrator was very interesting.

Victor Rios starts of the book by giving a brief background of his own life and what he experienced as a child in the ghettos of Oakland, California and the events that caused him to turn from his old way of life. During the span of Victor Rios’ juvenile years he decide to join and become a gang member Rios states “I joined the gang seeking protection that I thought police and other authority figures in the community had failed to provide”(Rios ix) Rios’ quote is the most commonly known reason why youth in urban areas seek out membership in gangs which is a lack of protection and involvement from police and authoritative figures in bettering these communities. Along with his membership he partook in deviant acts and so on. Rios talks about this boy he knew that went by the name “smiley” that would hang around the gang a lot. Before “Smiley” was initiated to the gang Rios notes how Smiley would tell him stories of how teachers would treat him punitively meaning that they were aiming to punish him based on his prior actions and his color. Rios mentioned “Smiley” as being a naïve boy, he suffered physical abuse from his parents along with that his parents often kicked him out as a punishment for questioning them and informing them about the negative ways his teachers went about treating him. Soon after “Smiley” was initiated into the gang, Rios states that they became best friends and had a sense of looking

Lindo was arranged to marry Tyan-yu. While the marriage was short-lived, Tyan-yu constantly lied to Lindo, and Tyan-yu’s mother treated Lindo like an object to be bartered between families. Lindo experiences depression being trapped in this lifestyle, so she decides to flee to America in order to escape it. When reminiscing on her marriage Lindo says, “I had no choice, now or later. That was how backward families in the country were. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs” (Tan ). Similar to the mother in the beginning, Tan creates appeal to pathos, forcing the reader to sympathize with Lindo. The reader’s sympathy to Lindo allows Tan to expand on the larger issue of sexism, creating an emotional and educational tone in order to coax the reader into, again, understanding the true scale of sexism. Tan drilling this larger idea of sexism into readers changes the reader’s perspective. With new perspective, readers notice the need for change to establish equality between both sexes. Therefore, Tan is using her writing as a tool for a deeper subject: exciting change within the world, and thus, exemplifying Jong’s words.

“Aguantando” means holding on. In the very first paragraph we see how important it is for the narrator, Yunior, to hold on to his father’s memory. Yunior lives with his mother (Mami), grandfather (Abuelo) and brother (Rafa). They live in a house where anything of value, including furniture, food, clothing and even Mami’s Bible is stained from a leaky roof. As a Hispanic male, believe me when I tell you there is nothing more sacred than Mami’s Bible in that home. Yet it is clear how important Papi’s pictures are because they’re always in a plastic sandwich bag to keep them dry. It’s also clear that Papi leaving was the

Rigoberta Menchu, a Quiche Indian woman native to Guatemala, is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for politically reaching out to her country and her people. In her personal testimony tittled “I, Rigoberta Menchu” we can see how she blossomed into the Nobel Prize winner she is today. Following a great deal in her father’s footsteps, Rigoberta’s mobilization work, both within and outside of Guatemala, led to negotiations between the guerillas and the government and reduced the army power within Guatemala. Her work has helped bring light to the strength of individuals and citizen organization in advocacy and policy dialogue on the world scale. In a brief summary of the book I will explore why Rigoberta Menchu is important to

Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, predicts the direction in which the world’s cities are headed, and how the changes in living conditions are only going to deteriorate if certain trends continue. The title of his book explains Davis’s vision for the future of cities as he feels there is enough evidence pointing towards an exponential rise in slum populations across the world’s largest cities. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on many issues regarding the rapid rise in developing cities’ slum populations, although he offers very one-sided arguments geared towards those who feel the current system is causing more problems rather than improving current conditions. This causes Davis to overlook the problems of slums as resolvable through different modes of assistance such as international aid programs. Instead, he views aid programs as the root cause of imbalance created during industrialization. Throughout the book, Davis presents information that confirms his preconceptions towards the slums. Therefore, all the evidence that is presented by him portrays confirmation bias as Davis fails to mention anything about the resolution of the problem of the growing number of slums and instead sees this problem as unavoidable. Particularly, Davis’ writing, although intended for the general population, is more geared towards critics who have similar ideas. Instead of providing the means through which the economy could be improved and the problem of slums could be resolved, it is

Marisol was written by Jose Rivera, premiering in 1992. He and other Latin American writers are known for creating works under magical realism. This genera of art traditionally depicts down and out suffering. He highlights topics about class, race and gender by skewing the reality the audience knows with allegory and symbolism. After the clash between the senile God and the Angels ensue, the New York becomes an unsettling dystopia. In this world, all foods are salt, it rains acid, and men can give birth. Throughout this desecrated world, the characters search for a way to keep on living. The actors portray these characters with honest intentions and clear acting choices, which allowed me to believe and empathize with their characters. After seeing this play, I understand that one cannot grow by dwelling in the past.

Imagine walking into a deserted town, exhausted from the scorching rays of the sun. It becomes more and more difficult to muster up the last ounce of energy to take another step, and eventually you drop to the ground. In this example setting is enhanced in a way that a tone of hopelessness for the character is developed. First, the setting is developed in a manner that places a hardship on the character. Furthermore, the town is devoid of life ensuring that any help to the character is out of the question and the sun itself is creating the hardship for the character. Similarly, Juan Rulfo uses the setting of his novel, Pedro Páramo, in order to influence the tone, which ultimately leads to his purpose of writing the novel. Comala, the

Buchi Emecheta tells of a woman's search for independence in her book Kehinde. The story begins as Albert and Kehinde Okolo have been living in London for 18 years as a couple. When Albert's sisters begin pressuring him to return to Nigeria, Kehinde resists the idea as their two children have never been to Nigeria and plus the fact that she found out that she is pregnant. But because of Albert's insistence, she decided to get an abortion. Albert then leaves and Kehinde remains behind to sell the house which was ordered by her husband. Later on, he calls their children also to Nigeria. Kehinde is lonely at first but manages on her own. Eventually, she begins to feel like a half-person without Albert and so she gives up her job and departs for Nigeria. On her arrival, she is horrified to learn that during their two-year separation, Albert now has a second wife. Kehinde decides to return to England and establish a life for herself there. Kehinde's troubled relationship to Albert and her children are paralleled in her recollections of a difficult childhood: Kehinde's twin was stillborn and her mother died at birth, prompting the family to believe that she had eaten her sister. It's a story that she at first accepts, but as she becomes her own woman she rejects its superstitious quality. Some of the themes of the story are Feminism, Masculinity, Patriarchy, Culture Clashes and Identity.