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Growing Up

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Could Maria’s family have died in a car crash? Could it have been her fault and all because an act of pride? In Gary Soto’s “Growing Up”, Maria acts in pride.A prideful person is someone who wants spend time with the family who she loves but won’t because she wants to be older than she is.Someone like Maria. Maria gets in a fight with her father about not wanting to go to the family vacation because she is too grown up. Using this plot, Gary Soto conveys the theme that people should enjoy the process of growing up, not act older in pride by using symbolism, conflict, and characterization. First, Soto uses symbolism to convey the theme that people should enjoy the process of growing up instead of acting older out of pride. When Maria is home …show more content…

The author says, “...she was riddled with guilt, since it was she who would have disturbed her father and made him crash.” In this, Soto uses characterization to combat the theme by showing how her prideful act of being older than she was, caused Maria to have a negative outcome. Now she worries that because of her “maturity,” her family would face the hardship of injury or death because of her. Soto later says, “Maria would get anxious again each time that she heard that her fight with her father could have caused great distress and even death. Maria knew she distracted her father and this made her upset because this could cause an accident.” Soto again shows Maria’s fault in acting older. She acts in vain and does not take the time to enjoy the process of growing up. To summarize, Gary Soto uses symbolism, conflict, and characterization to display the overall theme that people should enjoy the process of growing up. Imagine a world full of Marias who are prideful and care more about themselves than others. Now, imagine a world where everybody enjoys the process of growing up and takes nothing for granted. Maria fights with her father because she believes she was too grown up to go on a vacation, but learns a lesson: life will be better if people enjoy the process of growing up instead of acting out in

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