Theme Of Growing Up By Gary Soto

Elementary school is a big step, especially getting ready for middle school. For example, if one is bitter towards someone, meaning jealous or angry, then their middle school years won’t go very well. They will go through being angry and it will make them focus on less important things rather than their studies or sports. Similar to the boy in “The Jacket” by “Gary Soto,” he goes through his life being jealous of kids that are happy or have good relationships and new clothes. The boy does not like the jacket his mother got him and, does not appreciate it enough, even though it gets the job done. In other words, one does not get what they always want, one has to appreciate what they get, this supports the overarching theme and is represented by the symbolism, the setting, and the metaphors.

Have people ever told you that you are very mature for your age or that you have an old soul? If the answer is yes then you know the struggle of growing up too fast. Even though someone may tell you “your very mature for your age” may sound like a complement but to me it’s not. From a young age I remember being the kid never outside always in the house reading, writing, cleaning, and taking care of myself even when my mother, aunts, cousins, and grandma were home. I was forced to grow up faster than a child should during their childhood and teen years.

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.

deal with some of his hard times as a child. He makes it humorous because he tries to do jobs for other people that don't need to be done. For instance, he tries to rake his neighbors leaves in the middle of summer. In Soto’s “Being Mean”, his neighbor says, “It's summer, and there ain't no leaves.” This is humorous because although he did end up getting money, he was only 9 and did not consider the time of year or the jobs that he should be doing. Moreover, Soto felt very highly about his working. Although he was doing jobs that to some would be considered “degrading” he was virtuous about it and very hard-working. For example, he says, “I felt suddenly alive

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.

On the other hand, the imagery in the next half of the poem that Soto uses about adults is much more serious and sad than the imagery he has used for the children. A first example is “The cotton gin stands tall in the money dream”. This visual imagery is in reference to to picking cotton, or agriculture in general. Agricultural jobs are common among poor Mexican workers and are probably one of the only ways that many believe they can really earn money. In this second half of the poem, the author’s use of imagery is mainly featured around jobs and money. A second example of imagery when the speaker is talking to

If society was asked what defines “coming of age,” what would it say? Some would say people come of age when they act more mature, think grown up thoughts, or do certain actions. This quote by someone unknown helps form an explanation of what coming of age is: “Maturity doesn’t mean age; it means sensitivity, manners, and how you react.” In the literature piece “The First Part Last,” the author Angela Johnson writes about two teenagers, Bobby and Nia, who struggle with the difficulties of teen pregnancy. Throughout the book, they both face many hardships that put their relationship, patience, and responsibility to the test. With the help of a red balloon, a basketball, and family pictures in a doctor’s office, Bobby comes of age after paying attention to these symbols and signs throughout the novel.

First, Soto uses symbolism to convey the theme that you should enjoy the process of growing up instead of acting older out of pride. When Maria is home alone, she gets ready to go to the mall and look at boys. “She went through her mother’s closet to borrow a pair of shoes”. The shoes symbolize her want to be a grown woman. She grabs the shoes from her mother's closet showing maturity.

Conflicts supports the theme that one should be thankful in “Growing Up” by Gary Soto. The conflict of the passage is that Maira is not thankful for the amazing family that she has and is very rude to them. Soto has the character Maria getting into arguments with her father. For example in paragraph eleven the it says “ ‘I know, I know.

How do the poets use fictional and historical characters to explore human relationships and the human psyche in ‘Kid’ by Simon Armitage and ‘Salome’ by Carol Ann Duffy?

In his autobiographical narrative A Summer Life, Gary Soto shares a reminiscent pictorial image of a story of a six-year old boy, which is of himself. A boy that is guilty after stealing a delicious mouthwatering jam-like apple chunky filled pie. This delightful story engages the reader to experience Soto’s emotions of paranoid guilt and forgiveness of oneself. Soto’s description of stealing the pie allows the reader to understand he knows clearly right from wrong. However, he is excited to have the apple pie him self-gratifying guilt is elevated when he disregards his conscious. Soto emphasizes throughout the story his nervous guilt when he shares, “my sweet tooth gleaming and the juice of guilt wetting my underarms.” (10) The tone reflected

Growing up Geo Perez wasn’t the most popular girl. She was tall and she was tom boy. Living in South Los Angeles throughout her childhood was tough. She realized at a young age that she would have to work hard and surround herself by good people if she wanted to succeed in life. One of the people that came into her life was Jo So. Jo was born in Taiwan. His family moved to the United States before he was one. Growing up he didn’t make the best of choices. Jo brought his best friend David Kwan into Geo’s life. David was a shy, geeky kid growing up. He was always taller and bigger than everyone. As he grew up he became the funny one, this made the trio a very tight and sound group.

Maria is fifteen years old. Her mother reports that Maria has been performing poorly in school and has withdrawn from her family. This began after her transition to secondary school. Her performance further deteriorated when she began second year. Maria stopped participating in a number of her occupations including hockey, playing the piano, the girl guides, shopping with friends and going to the cinema. She now prefers to stay on the computer of listening to music.

A common piece of everybody’s vocabulary today is a word used in various contexts with little understanding to comprehend what it really means. “Maturity”, the stream of questions that come to our mind when we begin to ponder on the eight letter word is numerous. The most basic being, “What is maturity? How does one step up on the pedestal of maturity? And how do we measure maturity?” Einstein puts his perspective on maturity in an even more complicated manner, “I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity”, this view point does paint us a picture of maturity, but leads us to a whole new world of mystification.

John Green in his book Papertowns addresses some common themes of growing up. One of the main themes ---- during this book is identity. It is very easy for someone to change or adapt their identity, whether it is to trick someone, to fit in, or just because people need a change. The main character of Paper Towns, Margo, describes people has paper dolls, paper boys, or paper girls when they act ordinary. She also refers to the streets and buildings as paper. She believes all these things and people lack third dimension, she even comes to the realization that she herself lacks third dimension. This lack of third dimension in people and places mostly stems from peer pressure, peer influence, and influence of society. As children grow up