Summary Of A Summer Life By Gary Soto

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

“[I] walked to the door, grinning to the bald grocer whose forehead shone with a window of light...Tears blurred my eyes as I remembered the grocer’s forehead” (Soto 1-2). This repetition expresses that Soto is having trouble forgetting the person he affected with the crime, implying that he is generally an innocent boy that is suffering from a deeply guilty conscience. Repetition can again be seen as Soto continually glances at the pie tin after he had scarfed it down. “The pie tin glared at me and rolled away...I looked and saw the glare of the pie tin” (Soto 2). The pie tin, now serving as a physical symbol of his sin, constantly reminds the author that he did something morally wrong and permanent; the fact that Soto mentions seeing the empty pie tin more than once emphasizes just how much guilt the young boy is now feeling. These moments of repetition ultimately reveal Soto’s extremely paranoid mind that is filled with regret from stealing.

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”

Since Soto knows stealing the pie is a sin his guilt is amplified when he ignores his knowledge. Soto’s guilt is emphasized through the tone of the story, “my sweet tooth gleaming and the juice of my guilt wetting my underarms… I nearly wept trying to decide which to steal.” By Soto’s tone towards the pies over exaggerating on which one to steal shows that he is nervous and anxious.

The reader will also discern the scores of parallels able to be drawn between Santiago and Jesus Christ, making Santiago a literary ‘Christ-figure’. Both were somewhat outcast, in Santiago’s case because he was not a native Columbian. This makes it easier for the town to allow Santiago’s death, and make him the scapegoat. The town’s unwillingness to save Santiago is similar to the Jews choosing to have Jesus killed rather than a murderer. In both cases, those who had the chance to save the innocent man felt terrible afterwards. Jesus had foretold his own death, and although Santiago was blissfully unaware of his demise until it befell him, the narrator states ‘never was there a death more foretold.’ In dying for the sake of Angela Vicario’s honour, Santiago is sacrificed for the sins of others, which was also Jesus’ purpose in dying. In addition, the seven fatal wounds Santiago suffers probably represent the Seven Deadly sins.

     As mentioned before diction was used along with other elements to help bring out the heart of the matter in Soto’s story. When Soto says he held the pie like a “discus” it makes one think that maybe he was ready to throw it like a Frisbee because at the time he was so nervous. Also, when Soto first steals the pie, he notices that the grocer’s forehead “shone with a window of light.” It seems because Soto is so nervous, he begins to notice every little detail of what is going on in front of him. Another example occurs when Soto is eating the pie and he declares that his teeth were “bathed with the jam-like filling.” This makes him look as if he is relishing every moment of eating the pie.

Gary Soto’s body language sets the stage for symbolism on his aim on stealing pie from the grocer’s store. “...the juice of guilt wetting my underarms” (Soto 13). The juice of guilt symbolizes his religious knowledge, since he is acknowledged

Growing up Soto’s life at home wasn’t ideal and he never had high hopes for it. Soto’s family was Mexican American so he was born into a Chicano culture. Every one of their jobs, even his as a child, was some type of physical labor, “and he worked in the fields as an agricultural laborer and as a low-paid

Soto’s writings in this passage construct a tone which gives a feeling of concern, due to his family and also his friend Scott to disapprove of a relationship only because of social class and race. The tone portrayed can be perceived when he has discussions with his family about who is the right woman to marry

Soto talks about sacrifice, and we all go through that. What we do to please other people. The boy had to give up his orange because he didn't have enough money. He told his girlfriend that she can chose any kind of candy found in the isle, and she chose a chocolate bar that cost a dime, now the boy only had a nickel and a pair of oranges in his pocket. Instead of feeling embarrassed and cheep in front of his new girl, the boy decided to put up the nickel and an orange on the counter for the saleslady.

Summer Life starts and ends with biblical allusions, giving the reader exposition without literally describing Soto’s upbringing and values. He “knows enough about hell” and is “holy in every bone”, letting us infer that he comes from a very religious family and likely attends Sunday school. This gives us the reason why he is so nervous before stealing it and why he becomes consumed by guilt later. It's not just wrong on an ethical level in society, but it is a sin, something that can grant eternal damnation to hell. So as the “juice of guilt” drips down his body and he becomes increasingly anxious, he thinks about “the flowery dust priests give off” and god watching him. As he steals the pie and runs away, his religious background haunts him. He describes a squirrel nailed to a tree, alluding to Jesus Christ being nailed to the cross. He remembers bible lessons about Adam and Eve saying, “I Knew an apple got eve in trouble with snakes”. As he indulges and finishes his pie, Soto tries to forget his sinful act throwing his frisbee around with a shadow “like the shadow of an angel escaping bad deeds”. He climbs underneath his house listening to the “howling sound of plumbing” comparing it to God or a relative from the other side”. He then concludes that “he knew was what you took and didn’t give back” ending this passage with a last call to sin and the bible.

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 speaker addresses the dilemma of being neither Mexican nor American, of traveling the trajectory between both nationalities. Because he its color of the skin and lived in a border culture, it was often assumed that he was not an American. The speaker is a men looking for freedom and a better future, an element so well-known that he is willing to risk everything to achieve his goal. There is no need for Soto to run because he is an American. Soto’s poem is emotionally and a practical clever story that many Mexicans Americans relate too.

Gary Soto, who among many things was a Mexican-American poet, many times wrote about what he knew best: his life. Growing up as a Chicano in America in the 50s and 60s, Soto worked in fields as a laborer from a young age. It is evident that coming from a Hispanic working class family greatly influenced his poem “Ambition”. As he is known for, Soto's poem is filled with imagery of everyday life, while harping on important details and themes of things that he may have seen around him., but in this instance, there was a bit of confusion. To begin with, the poem “Ambition” starts off with the line "For years our ambition was to eat/Chicken"(1-2). Without further analysis, at this point the reader is most likely confused, much like I was. Chicken? How could eating be one's goal, one's aspiration in life? The word ambition is usually associated with lofty goals. It would not seem out of place to say that one's ambition was to become a doctor or to make a better life for oneself. So the speaker in the poem could not truly believe that all that he wanted in life was to eat chicken. The outlandishness of this statement seems to be the speaker pointing huge arrows towards places in the poem that invoke deeper meaning to

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.