Sunday, January 18, 2009

Looking for Work by Gary Soto

Looking for Work by Gary Soto captures everyone dreams in American. The dream of living in a beautiful house in a suburb, with green grass, 2 cars in the drive way and a white picket fence out front. He uses the analogy of a Tv show to bring his point across.

Mr. Soto writes this short story from the eyes of a nine year old mexican american and all he wants is the perfect family so everyone will like them. He writes the story with great detail describing a day in the life of this young boy who is seeking to become rich.

There is alot foreground culture built into this story. You know from the story that this young boy lives in a pretty okay neighborhood and that it it not Beverly Hills but it seems to be a okay area. He goes and does odd jobs for the neighbors and he seems to be accepted by the adults. You know he is a mexican - american and he is spiritual. The boy is kind, sharing and concerned for the welfare of others.

You know from reading this story I see alot of what everyone wants. Not just a mexican - american boy who goes out to do odd jobs or take his sister swimming but entire nation. We are all fed this idealistic world out there by what we see on tv and in the media. We set our selfs up in society for this and structure ourselves socially so that we can all dream for the better.

A few things I found interesting is that he never spoke of his father and what he did for a living, just what all the neighbors do. He does mention his mother a couple times and it seems she is the one runs the household but this would be typical for the time period this young boy grew up in and that the father worked and that is all he did and the mother was the one to take of all the things in the house and kids.

Below is a what a house in a working clas neighborhood may have looked like in the 1950's







3 comments:

  1. Many poorer families have/had an absent parent (even in the 1950's). That is one of the reasons they are so poor. Of course, there are poor families with both parents, and single parents who aren't especially poor. But single parent families certainly have a more difficult time bringing in enough money to make ends meet.

    In the case of this particular author, his father died when he was 5 years old. That would be an odd thing to mention in a story set 4 years later. Given those circumstances, not mentioning his father seems perfectly natural.

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  2. i seriously doubt that a working class neighborhood looks like that

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  3. Sometimes aiming for the perfect family is really a bit tough especially if you don't have a permanent job that can sustain all of your needs.

    But somehow, I always recommend applicant to look for professional resume templates and you can get all the facts here.

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