Eyes Of Zapata Rhetorical Analysis

Emiliano Zapata once said, “I’d rather die on my feet, than live on my knees”. In the story Eyes of Zapata by Sandra Cisneros it talks about how throughout the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata led a group of rebels that fought for agrarianism. Ines, Zapata’s lover, shares with the reader her thoughts and emotions about how she felt during the Mexican Revolution. Sandra Cisneros uses figurative language to convey her perspective about war by using similes, metaphor, and imagery.

To begin, Cisneros uses similes to elucidate that women during the Mexican Revolution felt scared when their significant other wasn’t home. A simile is a phrase that uses a comparison to describe with the words as or like. Ines talks about her observing Zapata before he can wake up. She talks about Zapata’s

Imagery is the use of vivid language to appeal the senses of what we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we taste, and what we touch. While Ines analyzes her lover she is also thinking about herself and comparing. She shares with the reader that she has to do more work when Zapata leaves for war. She proclaims, ““Elegant hands, graceful hands, fingers smelling sweet. I had pretty hands once, remember?”(Cisneros). This is imagery because she uses these soothing, words to make the reader be able to see and feel these things she is describing. The use of imagery in this sentence is comparing Inez’s hands to her lover Zapata’s saying that her hands are wrinkly and old and are not graceful and elegant like they used to be. With this it can be inferred that Sandra Cisneros has a negative feeling about war because it influenced and caused women to do more labor they would’t have to do if their partner was at home. Overall Sandra uses extensive amounts of imagery to really make the reader be able to understand and picture her ideology of the Revolutionary