Gary Soto Essay

Gary Soto’s story is a tale that addresses the struggle that young boys face in their attempts to be desired by

After denying a piece of the pie to Cross-Eyed Johnny, Soto begins to remember the things such as the grocers forehead, and a car that honked at him. Next, its Johnny who begins to build the guilt onto Soto, stating that “[Soto’s] hands are dirty”. Apart from him being a young child who does not have the best hygiene, Soto could have thought that Jimmy knew about stealing it, since that is also a common saying about someone who has committed a crime. After saying this, Jimmy climbs to the top of his house and watches him closely, almost as if he is god watching Soto from above. He continues to include all of these religious symbols and images because while the reader is able to pick up on them as they happen, Soto’s younger self wont realize them until he becomes paranoid at the end when he thinks everyone

Gary Soto’s religious word choice is used to to express his guilt while simultaneously acknowledging his religious beliefs. He makes his biblical beliefs known by proclaiming, “ I knew enough about hell to stop me from stealing. I was holy in almost every bone.” While these statements indicate that he is pious, Gary Soto lets the audience know that though he steals the pie he still is religious. Once the pie is stolen, he uses Adam and Eve as a reference to his fear of dying of thirst. He writes, “ what scared me… was being thirsty for the rest of my life.” Linking Eve stealing the apple to

Soto uses images of angels and light throughout the passage that remind the reader of the Bible. First, he describes his views of the world before he commits his sin. Soto combines his religious knowledge with his active six-year-old imagination when he sees “angles flopping in the backyard grass” and hears “faraway messages in the plumbing beneath the house.” Locations close and familiar to Soto remind him of angles and messages from God, which indicates he possesses a close connection with God. Second, Soto’s description of his moment inside a German Market as he “gazed at the nine kinds of pie” while his “sweet tooth gleam[ed]

“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

Mr. and Mrs. Soto get very bored when the children left to play games; however, they do enjoy the scenery of the lovely blue waterway, small talk with friends, and smoking cigarettes – under the sunlight. Soto felt sorry that his parent’s their faces filled with exhaustion, however he didn’t feel too guilty because he continued to play his games. They played in the dirt beneath the rocks, in which treasures lied such as: shimmery sand, old water logged leaves, rusted dirty bottle caps, and they caught small reptiles they’re squeals arose as the little critters crawled on the palms of their hands. Soto said, “We played games that we could have played at home, but it seemed so special to be there, the river loud at our side, fishermen shushing us, dogs knee -- deep in water and drinking” (127). In “Piedra” the most important tone is blissfulness. He plays games that bore him while he’s home however, he is intrigued by them in the wilderness his heart is filled with blissfulness, although the fellow fishers next to them holler to keep it down there spirits stay high. The “games” symbolize that Soto truly is in love with the wilderness. He doesn’t take anything for granted there everything is special and close to is heart. The “games” makes Soto’s heart sing with blissfulness as he

Soto utilizes imagery throughout his poem in order to enhance and revitalize the feelings that the girl

First, Soto uses symbols to convey the theme that one should appreciate what one has. One event that shows this is when the boys’ mother gives him an ugly jacket that he will have to wear for a long time. In “The Jacket” the boy states states, “I wanted to cry because it was so ugly and so big that I knew I’d have to wear it a long time.” This reveals that he hates the jacket and does not want it at all because of its image. In addition, Soto shows that he is even more disheartened when he realizes his mother bought a few sizes bigger, indicating he would grow into it and prolong his misery.

Throughout elementary and high school, Soto was a below average student (Tatum Vol. 1). He didn 't really excel as a young adult, as his main goal was mainly to remain out of prison (“Small Town with One Road” Page 207). Although Gary was not the best student, he went a different route than most other kids in his area, who joined the army or settled for some low-paying job. (Tatum Vol. 1). He instead attended California State University (“Small Town with One Road” 207). Soto never had an interest in studying literature throughout all of high school, but one occasion, while in college pushing off a research paper, Soto picked up a poetry anthology (Fabiano 279). One poem that really spoke to him was a piece called, “Unwanted,” by Edward Field, in which Soto realized that his alienation was not strange, but was actually very common for a human to be in that condition (Tatum Vol. 1). This random decision to take a look at an anthology of poetry would take a toll on Soto’s life in ways he would have never imagined, and completely changed him forever.

Despite his poor grades, it did not take too long for Gary Soto’s writing skills to become evident. As he grew older and attended high school, Soto was awarded the Academy of American Poets Award along with the Discovery-Nation Award. In fact, he won an award every year of his high

In the beginning of the passage, Soto claims to be “holy in almost every bone.” followed by “the shadows of angels” that he remembered “[flopped] in his backyard line glass” and how he could “[hear] faraway messages plumbing” when he “crawled” underneath the house due to boredom. All of the imagery and detailed diction in the opening paragraph suggests his holiness as he recalls “angels” watching over him, spreading goodness and his reflex to boredom being going underneath the house, conveys that he was often left with little to nothing to do. He then adds accusing diction saying, “boredom [had} made [him] sin”, if it weren’t for boredom, he was ought to remain holy. Soto reveals his lust for “the rack of pies” before his eyes were, while “[his sweet tooth [was] gleaming] and “the juice of guilt [was] wetting [his] underarms.” the term is used to “juice of guilt” mean the guilt caused by contradicting temptation. He was so tempted to the take a pie off the rack that he “nearly wept” not being able to decide on just one pie to steal, “forgetting the ... house”. Stealing the pie seemed so urgent to him and he had forgotten about his relation to god and what once kept him away from sin, could no longer inhibit him from fulfilling his

    Soto uses imagery throughout this piece. He describes the sun, the ray of light, the golden pie, and the vivid description of the grocer to emphasizes the idea that Soto is afraid of being watched, particularly by God, due to his religious upbringing. The author uses visual imagery to describe the “pleasure” aspect included in the guilty act. “I wiped my sticky on the grass and rolled my tongue over the corners of my mouth” (Soto 1). He does this just as one might do after satisfying feast. After consuming the pie Soto begins to remember exactly what he has done, and exhibit regret. When he states, “Tears blurred my eyes as I remembered the grocer’s forehead. I

The use of these metaphors and fantasy style writing has a cultural basis in Latin America, but they also serve another purpose. The mystical imagery is a way to code information that would be too dangerous to be explicitly written, to hide it from institutions of power that may pose a threat to the authors. These metaphors serve as a secret language that will be able to speak about the facts of the current political climate without running the risk of explicitly speaking about it. In the novel’s case, images such as the ‘paginas en blanco’, the faceless men, or the science fiction style speech all serve to express ideas that may seem dangerous if they were blatantly spoken outright. The ‘paginas en blanco’ describe information that is lost or erased by the Trujillo regime. To mention outright that the Trujillato had expunged certain details is history, in this case about Oscar’s family past, would lead an author to the same fate that Abelard had in the prison. The faceless men are avatars for the free-flowing power that belongs to the current dictators or structures of rule. This metaphor shows the key essential fact about the Trujillo regime, that while Trujillo was the puppet in this ruler ship, he was not responsible for the rise in power. That responsibility belongs to the government that seeded him in power to prevent communist insurgency in the Dominican Republic, in other words, our own government. This is alluded to when Yunior first mentions Abelard’s manuscript, the historical documents that planned to reveal the truth about the Trujillo administration. By using science fiction style speech, Yunior tells us “That it was possible that Trujillo was, if not in fact, then in principle, a creature from another world!” (245) The most prominent use of a mystical

I feel that this specific piece by Soto is about this mind boggling relationship we have with our condition. Through portraying a made up animal in a made up world, Soto makes a representation for our humankind. We are never again individuals from nature and earth, we are our own result of a culture that has done only mischief our condition, we our kin who have wrecked our normal surroundings for an assembled situation. What Soto catches in this animal is our own particular humankind. Our purity and our expectation, this is what is brilliant and lively in his work. In spite of every one of our imperfections, people can love, to mind, and to support. For instance, in this piece the characters grin is significantly more considerate than the red animals, his eyes are gentler and he is encompassed by blossoms, regardless of the way that one can derive that his kind could be the motivation behind why the mountains are infertile. Something in Soto's work is cheerful. This is the expectation that there is trust. This expectation comes from resurrection, the cycle of life, the conviction that regardless of whether people were wiped off this planet that something may keep on living, to develop, to flourish. It is a conviction that life will preserver regardless of what since that is the normal request of things, regardless of whether this life isn't individual, it is still life despite everything it exists and that will never

The end of this paragraph introduces Torres’ habitual use of repetition as the narrator reveals, “She knew where Paps was at, knew the secret of his urgency,” and contrasts this knowledge with their ignorance. Although Torres generally uses basic diction, perhaps to reflect the narrator’s young age, he employs higher-level