Response To Venue ': Gary Soto's Guilt'

Kelly Quick
Mr. Boesch
AP Language & Composition
23 February 2023
1996 Q2 (Soto’s Guilt)

They say it was the snake that lured Eve to the Garden of Eden, to taste the apple of knowledge, and to damn humanity. But why, exactly, did Eve listen? Had Eve responsibilities or some goal in pursuit, surely she couldn’t bother with such a trivial, obvious matter. Yet Gary Soto, at the liberated age of six, found himself in the same, vulnerable, and dangerous state as Eve had: boredom. In his reflective piece, Soto recounts his guilt through repeating, contrasting descriptions, symbolism, and shifts in the story as he fights between sweet temptation and merciless self-awareness. His guilt most prominently displays through his attention towards the

In the beginning, as he’s yet to grapple with the reality of sin, he claims, “...what scared me more…was being thirsty for the rest of my life” Yet, after his truly horrible deed was done, he recounts, “I flung [the pie tin] again until I was bored and thirsty.” As portrayed here, Soto’s greatest fear became actualized and the young boy did not even realize it. In fact, he brings a piece of his nightmare upon himself. He constantly flings the empty tin as if, after the fact, he no longer cares nor truly remembers what he wanted in the first place. Likewise, what brings this poor boy to sin, as he claimed, was boredom. Yet, after the deed was done, he recounts, “..but the bottle caps bored me…” and once again, he escaped to the basement, the place he goes as he looks for something to do. These actions alone highlight the pitfalls of sin; as he tried in desperation to save himself from boredom, he trapped himself once more where, after a brief, sweet hiatus, the feeling soon returned—and not only that, trapped him. After he ate the pie, few things, if anything, could save him from his boredom. There was nothing he could do, at that point, beyond sit with his internal reconciliation. Furthermore, the audience witnesses Soto’s change in perspective as the idea of “sin” itself actualizes from his actions. Towards the beginning, as he mulls the idea of sin and his temptation,

Throughout the story, the symbolism of light represents not merely the confrontation of holiness, but freedom, and from the use of light the audience can understand Soto’s developing views of what freedom truly is. In the beginning, when freedom seemed to come in the shape of a tin-clothed apple pie, Gary Soto saw the light reflecting from the shopkeeper’s forehead; liberation laid just beyond where that man stood. At the moment where Soto focuses on this specific detail, escaping the shop with the pie safe in his arms remained his greatest concern. By pulling off the deed of fooling the grocer, Soto will accomplish what truly matters (in pie form, of course). As Soto falls in his reverie with the pie, he says, “The slop was sweet and gold-colored in the afternoon sun.” To him, at that instant, the pie was his sweet escape from his six-year-old woes. He succeeded, he won, and he could finally embrace the fruit of his adventure. As he finishes, however, the “glare” of the pie tin, in contrast, symbolizes a different kind of confrontation. The emptiness and yet bluntness of the tin to dear Soto demonstrates reality’s opposition to his views, and makes Soto feel self-conscious and nervous—“glared” at, one could say. In the end, as he emerges “into the harsh light”, Soto