Poem Analysis: Oranges By Gary Soto

The tone of this poem is a mixture of emotions. She seems to enjoy being in his company, although the stories he shares break her heart. She expresses her conflicting feeling when she states the following:

The poem then transitions to the post-marriage life of the couple in stanza two. In lines eight through ten, the speaker states that she is too shy around her husband. Not only does she not smile, but also she does not answer her husband when he calls her. This shows that the speaker's life took a great emotional transition, as she is overly shy and feels uncomfortable around him. However, around the middle of the second stanza, the speaker transitions into another stage of

Remembering memories is preferred, rather than living in reality. In the poem, we witness a woman remembering her high school idol, and she decides in the end to not go and talk to him. It is evident that the woman in the poem prefers her memory rather than the view that reality is showing her, this is shown when the woman refuses to go and meet the “hero she had as a girl”, despite giving herself a realistic reason why she should go and greet him, “you think how easy it would be to walk right over and tap him on the shoulder[, and] say hello” but she doesn’t. She doesn’t go and greet him because her memory remembers him as someone amazing, and admirable, “taller than the boys in your own class[,] taller even than your brothers”; where height is a reflection of her admiration. But her hero is now “fat and balding”, and to go greet him now would warp her perspective of her hero, from someone to idolise, to someone pathetic. In the end, she chooses to just remember him just the way she wants to, rather than remembering him the way reality does, showing that memories are preferred over reality. The woman also chooses not to talk to him because of her personal desire to retain her views and opinions of not only how she sees her hero, but also how

It amazes me how this did not affect my childhood, but it may affect me in my adult years. I feel like my childhood seems closer to the son’s childhood. My parents always gave me more than they had. Name brand shoes and clothes, video games, etc.. I felt like the speaker’s tone was calm, and it seemed like he was not affected by his childhood. Most people would make a poem like this with an angry tone, especially when speaking about riots and other world problems. The speaker’s tone seems rather calm, especially when speaking about stars and galaxies. I find it rather interesting when you can almost hear how the speaker sounds in your head. It’s like the speaker and the reader are face to face having a conversation.

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

In the poem “Oranges” by Gary soto, it follows the sacrifices that a young boy makes to ensure that his lover is happy. Gary soto uses a nostalgic tone to emphasize that sacrifice is necessary in love. The larger issues throughout this whole poem is that gratitude from strangers can make someone else’s day amazing. Additionally, this is the speaker’s first date ever in his life, so he is extremely nervous and wants everything to go fine.

Each part was broken up after a noticeable shift and atmospheric changes in the poem. The first part of the poem is during “Sad is the man...with one”(Ln 1-2), and repeats again at “In a room...on his father”(Ln 6-9). These lines create a shift into a narrative stage. It puts a pause on the poem to introduce or explain the scene in the poem. The narrative is important because it shows the point of view of the poem. The second shift is created with “Already the man...should never disappoint”(Ln 10-18). This shift is when the father is thinking about his fears and desires, to be more blunt, the father’s fantasies. It creates an unrealistic tone to the poem an shows the father’s dismay when he cannot remember a story for his son. The last shift begins with “His five-year-old...scratches his ear”(Ln 3-5), and ends with “But the boy...up to silence”(Ln 19-23). This shift bring the poem into reality. In fact the poem states that the “emotional rather than logical equation”(Ln 20) is where most people get confused and frustrated at the world. The poem also states the conflict of fantasy and reality. This conflict is what creates the the multiple shifts and the complicated relationship between the father and the

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker, a twelve-year-old girl, is instantly gripped by a strong feeling of lust toward this mysterious seventeen-year-old boy: the paperboy. She even goes on to describe him as a “gift. A fluke from God” as if she believes that she and this boy are destined to be together (2). From her vantage point, the girl instantly notices the boy’s physical characteristics, traits which the young girl appears to admire when she describes the boy’s “bicep in the twilight” (3). This intense, love-at-first-sight reaction to the boy’s arm shows how irrational the girl’s feelings are. She seems to simply lust after the idea of him. The girl has “no memory of language” from their nightly encounters, further showing how this “relationship” was merely visual and very one-sided (6). The boy, potentially, never even notices the girl; and if he does, he does not acknowledge her presence, let alone her strong emotions. The only memories the girl has are from “loitering, lingering far past curfew,” times in which she merely stares at the boy while he completes his daily paper route (7). The girl's depictions of her mother "lost in steam, stirring" and her father "asleep beside his Manhattan, the half-read mail" almost puts the reader directly into the house. The girl, meanwhile, lost her in her emotions, wanders around her yard "without knowing what I longed for" (16). The parents, both focused on other activities, leave the twelve-year-old speaker to do as she pleases in the night.

Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California to Mexican-American parents. His grandparents emigrated from Mexico during the Great Depression and found jobs as farm laborers. Soto grew up poor in the San Joaquin Valley and learned that hard work pays off through chores, such as moving lawns, picking grapes, painting houses, and washing cars.

Abandoned by her mother at three-year-old, married at the age 19, three children at the age of 26, and with only a fifth-grade level education. My mom was in prison for a month after struggling to cross the Mexican border into the United States. My mom came to American seeking a better future where my siblings and I did go hungrier to be able to survive. The poet is describing the word “Migration” that takes a different method in relating what is crossing the border as well as tense perceptive effects that occur when it comes to crossing the border. Rosa Alcala’s poem has persona, metaphor, images and figures speech the author can illustrate the feeling of the poem as attentive vagueness.

In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.

It again reinforces the thematic concern of the overall theme. The tone does not change throughout the poem suggesting the constant constraint the poet felt. This is created by words such as "rage", "smouldering" and "furious". Which again highlights the irritation the poet herself felt due to the lack of freedom on the poetic inspirations. Therefore, the tone creates a sense of "life as bleak".

Pablo through the poem speaks his mind of experiences in Latin America by using the company of the United Fruits to describe the injustices to the locals vividly. Throughout the poem, Pablo uses a great deal of symbolism, metaphors, and connotations to relate the situation in Chile. The evidence of the setting as Chile is described in line 8 and 9 where the poet describes it as ‘…coast of my world….waist of America.’ Through the use of the word mu in the 8th line, it is evident that the persona in the poem is Pablo hence recounting events experienced in a colonial error marred by killings and social injustices against Latin Americans. There are multiple perpetrators such as Coca-Cola who

The short story is written in a colloquial tone and reads similarly to an unfocused train of thought, conveying simplicity and realism within the piece. The narrator frequently drifts from a complete statement to an aside throughout the narrative; for example, while discussing the poem his wife composed about her friend Robert he offhandedly recalls, “...I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Maybe I just don’t understand poetry,” (Carver 356). This passage, and others similar to it, cause the flow of the plot to meander, rather than adhere to a strict linear format. Additionally, while the abrupt and nonchalant remarks hold little substance to the narrator, they give the reader a window to the substantial disconnect between the narrator and his peers.

Out of the millions of people in the world, people manage to find the one person they get to call their world. The one person they cannot live without, it is a rarity to find the one to call “mine.” In the poem Oranges a young boy is in love with the girl of his dreams. A cold winter day the couple goes for a walk around the neighborhood, to come across the drugstore. Inside the drug store, the girl wants a chocolate bar that is out of the boys’ price range. To the young boys amazement he is able to make a deal with the cashier, giving the cashier a nickel and an orange in exchange for the chocolate bar. Immediately, happiness is shown on the girls face, and to show thanks the young boy is then allowed to hold his girls hand. No one can control