Gary Soto Broken Chain Analysis

Josie Mendez-Negrete’s novel, Las Hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, is a very disturbing tale about brutal domestic abuse and incest.  Negrete’s novel is an autobiography regarding experiences of incest in a working-class Mexican American family.  It is Josie Mendez-Negrete’s story of how she, her siblings, and her mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father.  “Las Hijas de Juan" is told chronologically, from the time Mendez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father 's brutal legacy. It is a upsetting story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the

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.

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.

The Story “Uncle Rock” by Dagoberto Gilb is about a look inside the life of a young eleven year old boy named Erick who uses his actions to show his disapproval of the countless men that come in and out of his beautiful mother’s life. After watching numerous relationships fail, Eric finally accepts and adjusts to an unlikely suitor perfect for his mom.

Social standards may confine individuals from pursuing their own personal interests. Through the relationship between societal standards and individual interests, Sandra Cisneros’ short story, “Woman Hollering Creek,” introduces the roles of men and women in a Hispanic culture. The protagonist, Cleofilas Hernandez, is trapped in an abusive relationship with her newly-wed husband, Juan Pedro. However, Cleofilas tolerates the toxic relationship due to the social norms of her society, which reveals that the Hispanic culture revolves around a patriarchal society and that women have to be submissive to their husbands. As the story progresses, Cleofilas abandons the gender norm to lead an independent lifestyle.

After being taken sexually advantage of, Esperanza repeats the phrase “you lied” to declare that Sally and the media have lied to her by saying sex is a pleasant experience. Furthermore, constantly repeating “you lied” shows that Esperanza has been traumatized by this experience; Esperanza realizes the women who have been assaulted were not magnifying the devastating psychological effects. Likewise, the statement, “He wouldn’t let me go. He said I love you Spanish girl.” is a statement which is repeated throughout the vignette. A boy saw Esperanza and grabbed her for his own sexual desire. Esperanza repeats the thought of being caressed without her consent and this creates the psychological effect of her seeing men as predators. This illustrates that groping negatively affects the way its victims look at the world. By using these structural elements to describe Esperanza’s first sexual encounter, Cisneros shows the harmful psychological effects sexual assault causes and sympathy for these people is instilled into the readers, because they know the harm that has been

In the story "Broken Chain" by Gary Soto the main character, Alfonso, Feels self-conscious about his appearance and tries to change to impress his peers. One day Alfonso meets a girl named Sandra and asks her on a date before the date he cleans his bike to impress Sandra, but his bikes chain brakes. He asks his brother, Ernie, to borrow his bike but he says no. Then Alfonso goes sadly to meet Sandra with no bike then Ernie shows up out of nowhere and says "You still

The narrative, Jasper Jones, presents two unlikely friends, Charlie Bucktin and Jasper Jones, who are completely different in comparison, who find out the mystery behind a friend’s seemingly random death. Charlie is a quiet, knowledgeable, and reserved young boy, and Jasper who is an outgoing, robust young man who has the world stacked against him. This invigorating novel is a young adolescent fiction book that encourages strength and maturity to overcome inequitable and unwanted situations. Through the construction of Jasper in Jasper Jones, it is visible that no matter how hard or resilient a person may appear to be on the outside, eventually everyone will break down or fall apart under the weight of social pressure and neglect; so it takes

“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

She discovers that her aunt has found her a job matching pictures with negatives at the local photofinishing store. Esperanza has to lie about her age so she can get the job with her Aunt Lala. Esperanza starts to feel more comfortable as she has someone to eat lunch with. He says to Esperanza that “I please him with a birthday kiss” (55). She says she would but he grabs her faces, kisses her hard and does not let go. This is Esperanza’s first real sexual experience that she has. Esperanza has her first crush with a boy named Sire. He has a girlfriend named Lois who doesn’t really know much. Her parents tell that Sire is a punk but that does not keep Esperanza from wishing she could “sit up outside late at night on the steps with sire/ or from wondering what it feels like to be held by a boy, something she so far has only felt in her dreams” (72-71). This is Esperanza’s first experience of jealousy to finding the missing pieces of a puzzle to her identity. Esperanza sometimes worries that she is unattractive and that her looks will “leave her stuck at home” (88). Esperanza’s mother by saying she will be more beautiful as she gets older. Esperanza is faced by getting judged on your self-image. She wants to be like the “femme fatales” in movies, who drive men crazy and refuse them instead of waiting around for a husband to take her away. Esperanza’s mother complains that how she could have done something with her life and about how

I, Daniel Garza, am terrified. Every night I have the same nightmare- vigilantes dragging me by the hair into the streets where they torture and kill me in daylight. Why, you may ask? Well, dear reader, I am a Unionist living in Texas, a confederate state during the Civil War. So far, no one knows of my “betrayal,” but I fear that one day, someone will, and my body will end up hanging from a tree.

The authors of the four memoirs overcame their childhood obstacles by reconnecting with their parents. Gary Soto overcame his problem of not wanting to work in the fields by reconnecting with his mother. Laurence Yep reconnected with his father and found out that he loves him for who he is which helped him change his perspective that his dad didn’t like him. When Barack Obama’s father came to visit he reconnected with him and his fatherly love resolved Barack’s problem of not having friends in school. The cause of Julia Alvarez’s parents sending her and her siblings to an American school reconnected herself with them and fixed her issue of living in a dangerous country. Authors of memoirs describe overcoming obstacles to teach readers

One of the most traumatizing child abuse cases in Californian history occurred to a boy named David Pelzer. During the majority of his childhood, Pelzer was severely mistreated and abused by his alcoholic mother and absent father. The young boy endured such tragedy and heartbreak from the rejection of his own family for almost a decade. His life story was later shared in his profound autobiography called A Child Called It. The author himself takes you on a journey to first handedly experience the neglect he once suffered. Throughout the novel, there is an evolution within the protagonist that gives him the strength to finally break free.

Gary Soto’s Seventh Grade and Singer’s The Cat Who Thought are both written in third person. While they share this, both stories differ because the theme of Seventh Grade is to be yourself, while the theme of The Cat Who Thought is the inside matters, the outside does not.

Based on a T.R.U. Story is the debut studio album by American rapper 2 Chainz. It was released on August 14, 2012, by Def Jam Recordings.The album features guest appearances from fellow rappers Lil Wayne, Drake, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj and Playaz Circle cohort Dolla Boy, along with singer-songwriters The-Dream, Mike Posner, The Weeknd and Chris