Section 8 Short Story

The short story “Section 8” by Jaquira Diaz is about a young adult, Nena, struggling to accept her feelings towards her friend Boogie. Further hindering the young woman is the unsupportive environment she finds herself in where just about everyone’s family has either physically or emotionally abandoned them. The story ends with Nena finally standing up the bullies who’ve been attacking Boogie- however Boogie herself rejects Nena, leaving her to imagine a life where the situation ended happily. Not only does the story leave a large impact on the reader, but it also leaves the music of poetry singing in one’s ears throughout the text by the use of consonance. The repetitive use of consonance and internal rhyme are scattered throughout the story, although the most impactful and noticeable would be the very first line of the text. Diaz also manages to make this work subtly satirical- as in, one may not notice the heavy use of satire until the pieces were to be carefully examined. One additional characteristic of Section 8 is the splatter of Spanish words thrown in amongst the English- words that can be translated through the context if one is not a native speaker and which string together separate events by association. The last piece of important satire that will be spoken about is that of the Magic City Strangler and the impactful contrast between the killer’s method of killing.
The story Section 8 has the majority of signifiers for Spanish romanticism poetry- which later gave