A Summers's Life By Gary Soto Analysis

In the essay “Being Mean” from Living up the Street by Gary Soto, the tone is tense and mischievous based on the author’s diction and the use of repetition. Gary Soto describes his childhood as being very violent and gives details about how it is so: “Rick and I and the Molinas all enjoyed looking for trouble and often went to extremes to try and get into fights.” By Soto saying this, it represents how mischievous he was as a child. Moreover, the title of his essay “Being Mean” fits the tone of being mischievous perfectly because the definition of mean is for someone to go out of their way to cause you pain, which he does, but in a mischievous way. Furthermore, Gary Soto also uses repetition to let the reader know how he feels about certain

In the beginning of chapter 5, the author talks about how the things that revolved around him was school and church. Outside school and church there were the endless street games on 122nd street. The block was safe to play on under the watch of housewives. Plus on page 39, Walter and his friend decided to hang Richard Aisles. Fortunately, the pastor came there and stopped the whole thing. Finally on page 45, he starts to read books instead of comic books, and becomes really great at writing poems.

In his poem “Behind Grandma’s House,” Gary Soto details the life and daily routine of a somewhat masochistic ten year old boy as he kicks over trash cans, terrorizes cats, and drowns ant colonies with his own urine. In many ways the boy acts as any other boy his age would be expected to, but he tends to go further than most young boys with his actions and descriptions of how he feels. This extra violence and destructive tendency the narrator exhibits can lead the reader to believe that, rather than being a typical child, he strongly craves attention due to his circumstances, and he is willing to act out and act obscenely in order to receive that attention.

In David Updike’s “Summer”, Homer is overcome with an innocence yet fixated crush on Sandra. The adolescents spend their school-free summer at Sandra and Fred’s family lake house. This vacation, according to Homer, proves to be different. Homer, Fred and Sandra’s transition to adulthood is much like the change from summer to fall they are experiencing. If Homer could get out of his own head, then he could get the girl and summer of his dreams.

In Gary Soto’s short story “The Jacket” the main character, the boy in the jacket, vows “ I spent my sixth-grade year in a tree in the alley, waiting for something good to happen to me in that jacket, which had become the ugly brother who tagged along wherever I went.” The boy blames his jacket for all the struggles that happened to him and he believes that the jacket brought him bad luck. Soto uses this to support the theme because the boy is being distracted by the jacket. Which makes him not try to improve his life. Soto uses literary elements, symbolism, and conflict to support the overarching theme: focusing on the small things like appearances can distract society from the bigger more important things.

Freedom Summer, by author Bruce Watson examines the courageous and passionate efforts of roughly 100 predominantly white college students as well as several local black Mississippi residents who stood up for change and equality while pushing the limit of uncertain futures. The book discusses the journey these students encountered in order to reach their aim of voter equality and opportunity for blacks in the south. The objective of these students was to create a voter registration system in the heart of segregated and unjust Mississippi. In 1964, they did just that. This “Mississippi Project” as it was sometimes called was run by local civil rights group council in the state known as the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). Along with

At the very core of humanity and its behavior lies mistakes and wrongdoings. No matter how intensively they may try to stay faithful, every person occasionally betrays their moral conscience. This trespass has been interpreted in countless forms of literature and media ever since the written and verbal word has existed. Gary Soto’s A Summer Life is a powerful example, using diverse forms of rhetoric to convey his cycle of initial pleasure, guilt, and eventual remorse over the measures taken place in the autobiographical narrative. The author uses vivid imagery, allegorical symbolism, and thought provoking biblical allusions to change a recreation of something one-dimensional, such as stealing a pie, into a six-year-old undergoing an ethical dilemma.

Soto uses repetition and motif to describe how weather can depict the mood of a story and how little things can have great effects on people. Gary Soto includes a motif of weather throughout the poem to illustrate the mood and setting of the poem. Soto begins with “December. Frost cracking,beneath my steps, my breath before me. Her house the one who burned yellow night and day, in any weather” (5-8). This motif describes what is going on in the beginning of the poem and hints what the story will be like based on the mood that it sets. Soto uses the motif throughout the poem and he uses it a second time as he leaves the store “Outside, A few cars hissing past, Fog hanging like old Coats between the trees”(44-47). This time, Soto displayed the

Maturity is the feeling of needing to prove that one is sophisticated and old enough to do certain things. In the short story “Growing Up,” Maria’s family went on a vacation while she stayed at home, but when she heard there was a car crash that happened near where her family was staying, she gets worried and thinks it is all her fault for trying to act mature and angering her father. Society wants to prove how mature they are and they do so by trying to do things that older people do and the symbols, conflict, and metaphors in the text support this theme.

A Cathedral is a place for people to go and worship, to connect with God. By drawing the Cathedral the narrator is in some ways also making a connection. For the first time, he appears to be able to see. The narrator's ignorance and preconceptions fade away because he sees that although Robert has the gift of knowing and understanding people. There is also a sense of irony at the end of the story. The narrator’s eyes are closed and he is being led by a blind man, yet he is able to see. Carver never explains what it is the narrator sees, but there is the sense that he has found a connection and is no longer detached or isolated. The narrator is faced with a stark realization and glimmer of hope.Hope for new views, new life and probably even new identity. Even the narrator’s wife is surprised by the fact that her husband and Robert really get along together.And this is an undoubtful argument that the narrator changed throat the story, Robert unconsciously succeeds in bringing new psychological and spiritual opening to

In Gary Soto’s short story ‘Growing Up,” the main character, Maria, says, “‘I know, I know. You’ve said that a hundred times,’ she snapped.” Maria is acting ungrateful because she doesn’t want to go on vacation with her family and she is arguing with her father about it instead of being grateful for what she has. Being grateful is feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness and being thankful. In the story Maria argues with her father about not wanting to go on vacation with her family and claims that she is old enough to stay home by herself. Maria is trying to grow up too fast and she put her family to the side instead of being grateful. In this story, conflict, characterization, and symbolism all have an effect on the overall theme.

In the Stephen King short story, The Man in The Black Suit, the narrator Gary recounts an experience from his childhood that scared him permanently. When he was nine, Gary was tormented and stalked though the woods by the devil, who manifested himself after Gary wandered into the woods. During their interaction, the Devil lies to Gary and says that his mother just died at home. The Devil claimed that Gary’s mother was killed in a similar way that his brother, Dan, was also killed not too long ago, as she was apparently stung by a bee and is dead in his kitchen. Gary knows the Devil is a liar but finds it difficult to resist believing him. He remarks to himself, “we always believe, on some level, the worst things our hearts can imagine”. The

Everyone belongs to different places, and everyone has a different personality and identity. Identity, or the way you characterize yourself, can change a person’s actions, words, and feelings. People feel the need to belong somewhere whether it 's school or at home or anywhere else. Everyone has different personalities no matter what age they are. Children 's’ personalities are to be nice, have fun and stay a kid forever. All kids want to belong to a family and be somewhere where they are loved. On the other hand, adults belonging and identity are completely different. Their personalities are to be realistic, responsible, and in control or in charge, but they also feel the need to belong to a nice, caring family. Young adults can also have

Suspense. It's what makes us sit on the edge of our seats at movies, or has us biting our nails as we read. It’s the backbone behind any classic horror film where the babysitter keeps getting unknown phone calls about checking the children and she asks the police to trace the call only to get a call back saying it's coming from upstairs. Suspense is used in literature to give off a feeling of uncertainty. In W.F. Harvey’s story “August Heat”, he writes about our protagonist James and how he meets a bizarre character named Mr.Atkinson who he feels is an unnatural person and feels uneasy with him. Later when he is invited to stay the night, Harvey finished the story off with James saying he will “be gone in less than an

The cathedral that the narrator draws with the blind man represents the ability to see beyond the surface of things, and find underlying deeper meanings to things. Before drawing with Robert the narrator was so close