A Summer Life Rhetoric Analysis Essay

Junot Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated with his family to New Jersey, where a collection of his short stories are based from. Out of that collection is a short story “Fiesta, 1980”, which was featured in The Best American Short Stories, 1997. This story is told from the perspective of an adolescent boy, who lives in the Bronx of northern New Jersey with his family. He is having trouble understanding why things are the way they are in his family. Diaz shows Yunior’s character through his cultures, his interaction with his family, and his bitterness toward his father.

He blames his theft of apples on the peer pressure he had when he did it. The lesson he learns here is that “friendship can be a dangerous enemy, a seduction of the mind. ” Like love, it must be subjected to reason if it is to be truly good.

Towards the end of the passage, after eating the piece of pie, Soto uses imagery to illustrate regret. When he stated, “Tears blurred my eyes as I remembered the grocer’s forehead. I remembered the other pies on the rack, the warm air of the ran above the door…” he recalled the embarrassment and shame he felt after stealing the

In the short story Mr. Soto exclaims when he was younger he pushed a lawn mower, door to door trying to find someone who would pay him to cut their grass. At the time he did not know that his area was in the lower-class bracket, “It struck me like a ball. They were poor, but I didn’t even recognize them. I left the projects and tried houses with a little luck, and began to wonder if they too housed the poor” (101). This is significant because later he speaks about how he was so oblivious to how he grew up. Later in this childhood story he stated that he wanted to become a hobo since he thought there was no jobs for him in the world since he did not want to work like his father. He exclaimed that his dad would come home with blistery hands, sit down their living room chair and stare at the television for the rest of the night. At the end of this story he starts talking about how he became who he is now, and why he fell into his career. “It’s been twenty years since I went door to door. Now I am living this other life that seems a dream. How did I get here? What line on my palm arched in a small fortune? I sit before students, before grade books, before other professors talking about books they’ve yet to write, so surprised that I’m far from that man on the sidewalk” (101). This quote from “To Be A Man,” is a very smart and somewhat humorous line, because Mr. Soto realizes that he could have easily been a hobo on that

Soto’s use of imagery serves as an aid to the reader to better understand the author’s perspective, which is that of a six-year-old boy. Prior to stealing the pie, the author uses imagery to describe his temptation to steal. “My sweet tooth gleaming and the juice of guilt wetting my underarms” (Soto 1). The imagery here illustrates both the irresistibility of the temptation to steal and the immaturity of the young boy as he can’t take his mind off of anything but what is in front of him. After stealing the pie, Soto

He “knew enough about hell to stop [him] from stealing” and was “holy in almost every bone”. Soto’s diction makes it clear that his younger self was well behaved because he was scared of the consequences of sin, but not necessarily because he wanted to be good. It also implies that even fear could not stop the most mischievous parts of him. Regardless of his willingness to behave, the young Soto truly believed in a God, and often saw “shadows of angels” and heard “faraway messages in the plumbing”. These symbols appear throughout the passage in order to show how sin changed Soto’s interpretation of them. The narrative continues, and the young boy stands in a German Market, staring at pies. As he ponders which type to steal, the “juice of guilt” wets his armpits and he “nearly [weeps] trying to decide”. This imagery of wetness is associated with his sin, and strongly contrasts the dryness of “the flowery dust priests give off”. The opposing wet and dry imagery show that the boy is sometimes bored with the dryness of religion, but the possibility of stealing a pie both terrifies and excites him. Once again, he is reminded of “the proximity of God howling in the plumbing”

In the novel, Bless me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, a boy goes through many more experiences than any child in the hot summer days in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He witnesses the deaths of his close friends and family. This boy expresses his emotions and grief through his dreams, only to wake up with fear and confusion in his mind. Antonio’s life is filled with dreams that foreshadow future incidents, as well as influences Antonio’s beliefs of religion and ideas of innocence.

Throughout the autobiographical narrative written by Gary Soto, many different literary elements are used to recreate the experience of his guilty six-year old self. Different elements such as contrast, repetition, pacing, diction, and imagery. Soto narrates this story as a young boy at a time when he seems to be young and foolish, Soto foolmaking mistakes, but at the same time hoping to learn from them. Soto uses each of these devices to convey different occurrences in the narrative.

In “The Secret Lion,” Alberto Alvaro Rios establishes the theme as loss of innocence in a young boy. The narrator brings to life a boy who must leave behind his youthful perceptions about girls, the arroyo, and his green haven. All preconceptions are shattered, and each glimpse of bliss is taken away. Through this the boy gains perspective, and begins to see the world with a new awareness. Rios ingrains the loss of innocence theme through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy who exhibits maturity, autonomy, and disillusionment.

In his article “If Technology Is Making Us Stupid, It’s Not Technology’s Fault,” David Theo Goldberg effectively informs the reader about the effects that computers in the home and school environment could have on the future education of the coming generations. Goldberg achieves this by executing defined organization and adding unique comparisons about the potentially crippling effects technology can have on a society when put into the wrong hands.

In the poem “Behind Grandma’s House”, Gary Soto writes about an experience he had as a young boy. He speaks of himself as being a nerdy Spanish boy who wants attention. He screams out for attention by acting out in negative ways. Most know, to bring attention to one’s self, one can acquire it by acting negatively or positively, but negative attention brings punishment. Soto obtains his grandmothers attention at the end of the poem, but he may have regretted it. Gary Soto’s “Behind Grandma’s House” is a 1952 free verse poem that uses imagery to suggest the speaker’s perspective of the story.

The poem begins explaining to the reader the story of a Mexican American as he worked in an industrial factory at some point in his life. “In the factory I worked, in the fleck of rubber, under a press of an oven yellow with flame.” (Lines 1-3) Soto uses visual imagery to describe the color of

“Let's start off with Baseball in April then we can move on from there.” I said, “What was your first thoughts about the book?” “I liked the genre and how the theme presented differently for different people” Soto said, “I guess the people liked it too, and it became one of my most popular books.” “This may be a hard question” I said, “ but what is your favorite short story in the book ‘Baseball in April’?” “ I think ‘Broken Chain’ because it related most to me. Whenever I got something it was rarely expensive. Most of my things were cheap so most of the things broke in 10 months.” “Here we have some questions from the audience” I said, “ The audience wants to know what is your favorite color and why?” “My favorite color is white because it represents me. I’m a good person, and white is a angelic color which represents me a lot. I don’t like black on some things, but sometimes it's a wonderful color.” “Here is another question from the audience” I said, “How did you think about writing the book?” “I was thinking about making another book, and I wanted to make one about the myself. I made one with my town, friends, and just general things that happened to my

After eating the pie, Soto claims that “a car honked, and the driver knew” that Soto had stolen the pie (65). He says of his neighbor that “she knew” (66). He even says that his mother who was working “knew” that he had committed this horrible crime (68). Soto’s repetition of all of the people he believed to know about the stolen pie helps the reader understand his paranoia. Obviously it is unlikely that these people actually know that he stole the pie, but in his mind it was a very real possibility if not a certainty. Along with his paranoia, he feels guilty about what he did. He says that after stealing and eating the pie, he “knew that sin was what you took and didn’t give back” (85-86). This biblical allusion references Soto’s guilt because it shows that he believes he has gone against his religion and sinned by stealing the pie, or taking it and not giving it back. The reader can empathize with the guilt Soto felt after going against what he believes are very important moral rules by imagining how they would feel after violating their own morals. Soto shares the guilt of his younger self through this religious allusion along with using repetition to share his

Although there are a multitude of differences between our worlds, like the way we grew up and the differences in our heritage. There are also many similarities that help me to relate to Soto and his experience. I do wish that I could have seen more of why he felt that the jobs he was doing made him feel like he was doing something that he shouldn’t have to do. As I reflect on the story Soto tells I think about how I could have decided not to do something only to find that I can’t get back what I did. While Soto did eventually return to the grape fields not everyone has the opportunity to go back and make what they think is a bad situation better.