Analysis of Gary Soto Narrative

Read the passage here: http://teacherweb.com/TX/RoundRockHighSchool/MaryEsparza/SotoPiestory.doc

This autobiographical narrative passage from A Summer Life by Gary Soto is a story of a six year old boy stealing pie and realizing the amount of guilt that his sin has caused him to feel. Soto’s pacing, diction, repetitive theme, and detail emphasize the guilty feeling and almost make you feel as if you are in the position. The first noticeable thing is the theme of his religion being a very prevalent cause of his guilt.

The very first paragraph of the passage mentions Soto’s knowledge of hell and his constant holiness to prevent going to this place of the condemned. He states that almost daily he “heard faraway messages in the plumbing,” supposedly from God, and saw “angels flopping on the backyard grass.” Throughout the passage he reflects back to the howling and the angels. Soto states that after he got home from eating the pie he heard the howling and questioned whether or not it was God speaking to him. Soto also proved an allusion to Adam and Eve which was used as a comparison of them to him. He mentions that he knew an apple got Eve in trouble. This was relevant to him because he had stolen an apple pie and he had committed a sin which he had been told not to do. The fact that he was so religious causes the guilt to be extreme. This guilt is obviously shown throughout the passage in many ways.

One of the ways that the author shows the feeling of guilt is by the way he goes in to detail. He describes the pies, the market owner, the neighbors, and the general situation in great depth. Describing the surroundings and how he is eating the pie shows that he was very aware that he was doing something wrong and that the guilt hit him so hard that he paid attention to every occurrence. He memorized every person’s moves, every squirrel, and every tree.

“A car honked and the driver knew. Mrs. Hancock stood on her lawn, hands on her hip, and she knew. My mom, peeling a mountain of potatoes at the Redi-Spud factory, knew.” Stating that people who were nowhere around during the incident were aware of his sin emphasizes his feeling of guilt.

Soto takes his time and builds up the story until finally ending with the understanding that he cannot take back what he has done and with his ultimate feeling of guilt. He begins with the complex description of the various pies and the actual pie-stealing event, and then leads on to describe the slow process of eating the pie and his realization of the sin after returning home. The fact that he stole the pie and did not immediately eat it highlights the fact that he was hesitant and felt guilty. His observances of the neighbors and such also pace out the story to make the feeling of guilt ultimate.

Diction in the passage such as “sticky with guilt” personalizes and elaborates more on the feeling of regret. His depiction of eating the pie was quite intricate. With him explaining the smell, the gold-colored slop in the afternoon sun, and the finger-dripping pieces, he makes you see how irresistible the pie seemed to be. This use of diction makes the reader relate more to the six year old. Referring to the sounds from the pipe as “a howl like the sea,” shows how intensely worried the possibility of God knowing made him. Many of the words chosen and the way they were put together make the passage much more intense. Rather than just telling people how guilty he felt he uses diction that helps suck the reader into the actual emotion.

Gary Soto’s use of rhetoric throughout this passage enthralls the reader. The person reading the passage can feel the actual emotion from the various uses of diction, detail, and pacing. The theme of religion also appeals to many individuals because nearly 85.8% of the world’s population is religious. Soto’s rhetoric was very effective in describing his own feeling of guilt while also evoking and reminding readers of how the emotion feels.