In, “Growing Up” by Gary Soto, Maria shows she is ungrateful. She is ungrateful for what she has, and feels that, “She was free” She feels free from her family which shows that she isn’t very grateful towards them. This is shown in the text because, Maria shows ungratefulness and disrespect towards her family. All in all, the moral of this story is, one has to learn how to be grateful and give respect before they can really, and fully grow up. This is shown in the narrative through, symbolism, characterization, and conflict. Basically there is a very important lesson one can learn for the process of growing up. In “Growing Up,” by Gary Soto, one needs to learn to be grateful and respectful towards her family. She is learning to be …show more content…
This makes up the moral Maria learns. Maria ends up feeling bad about what she did and how she spoke towards her father. This shows her characterization. Maria’s characterization shows how she easily feels bad for things she does, and gets anxiety over things she should not worry about since, it will most likely not happen. Maria feels anxiety and has that feeling that everyone gets when they are worried the feeling like you are sweating on the inside and all of your fears are just going to burst out. This is true according to this quote from the narrative, “But an ill feeling stirred inside her. She felt awful about arguing with her father. She felt bad for her mother and her two brothers, who would have to spend the next three hours in the car with him.” Maria won’t learn anything if she hasn’t gone through with anything which means that she cannot be exactly like her father. Maria’s father obviously wants her to be like him or else he would not talk about his life, and what he would have been grateful for, and what Maria needs to be. According to this quote, as Maria is growing up, it is as if he wants her to be exactly like him, “ ‘When I was a kid we didn’t have money for vacations. I would have been happy to go with my father. ‘ “ Maria cannot be like her father until she learns the boundaries between good and bad. Many characterizations make up the lesson one learns, …show more content…
Maria knows how she will feel if she apologizes or shows in any way she is sorry, even though it shows how grown up she is. This shows how disrespectful she is towards her father, and that she feels anger, and was defiant towards him, and this symbolizes how she feels about being treated like this by her father when all he is doing, is trying to be nice, and forgiving. This is shown in this quote from the narrative, “ She wanted to apologize to her father but couldn’t. She knew that if she said, ‘dad I’m sorry,’ she would break into tears.” Another symbol shown in the text is, even though that Maria acts like she feels bad for how she treated her dad, she doesn’t feel bad when her family leaves. On the contrary, she was happy that they were away. This symbolizes that she was ungrateful for her family, and when they were away it was as if she would never miss them even though, sometimes it is good to be away from family, but it is different to act like you wouldn’t miss them. This symbol is shown in this quote from the text, “ She was free- for five days at least.” Maria’s lesson shows how she needs to be grateful towards her family, and do things that show she is grown up enough for privileges. When she does these things she will be able to grow up, and she that she has
Through the course of this story, it was a huge misunderstanding by Maria that Nemecia had killed their grandfather and hurt her own mother. However, Maria is not to blame for this misconception
Katie Nolan, Francie’s mother, is the main reason that Francie is able to survive her arduous childhood and succeed in life. Food, heat and protection are always available to the Nolan children even if it means that Katie has to work multiple jobs or even sacrifice some of her own needs. Katie gives all she can to provide for her children and Francie truly values her mother’s hard work. Francie appreciates her mother’s thougtful acts, but still, Francie develops
When he got sick trying to protect their land, his Abuelita asked to take him home but refused and answered, “no, no, no. I want to help Mami with her dream house” (128). Carlos had wanted to prove to his mother that he wants her to stay badly, even if it could cost him his life.
Jeannette and her siblings adapt to self- sufficiency from a young age, from being emotionally and physically neglected by their parents. The children don’t expect anything so they learn to work with what they have and what opportunities come their way. Jeannette saw the suffering of the family and took this leadership for the family guiding her sibling in the correct path.
Hernandez does what she can to keep her own head above water by getting a job at a local McDonalds and keeping her grades up in school. Though guilty of her own successes Hernandez did what she had to do, to survive and create her own future.
Mariam has a basic understanding of justice. She believes that she does not have it, will not have it, and even that she does not deserve it. The beginning of the novel
Mariam struggled often with the constant rigor of her daily housewife work. As a child, Mariam encountered many horrific adversities and obstacles that she had to fight through. She lived with her mother, who she refers to as Nana. Nana was a very strict, bitter, and nasty woman. Mariam was the only thing she had in her life and she constantly treated her as dirt. She referred to Mariam as a harami, which translates to a sinner and/or a bad person in our culture. Her mother’s source of bitterness derived from the fact that Mariam’s successful father Jalil
Lastly, her family betrayed her by not listening to her side of the story after her sister told lies about her, and they betrayed her when they acted as if they did not care if she moved out of the house. In all of these actions, the family itself and certain members of the family are portrayed as uncaring, unsupportive, disrespectful, conniving, deceitful, and hateful to Sister. Through every action of the family, Sister is treated harshly, and she tries to not let this bother her. Yet, anger and bitterness build up inside of her until she cannot take it anymore. Consequently, it built up so much inside of her that it severely affected Sister so profoundly that she moved away from her home to get away from her family.
On page thirty-two Matt says that La Llorona called out into the night, “Ooooo . . . Ooooo. Where are my babies?” At this time in the novel, a reader would not even know that Esperanza existed. Esperanza is actually Maria’s mother, and the author throws out small hints at that. On page thirty-three Maria says “Stop it! I told you to stop it! Don’t you ever listen?” From that, the reader can automatically comprehend that for some reason Maria doesn’t like the story Matt is telling her. She doesn’t think that she has a mother at all, so this upsets her. She can relate to it. It’s implied that La Llorona technically is Esperanza calling out for Maria. This tells her identity and who she really is. From all of this, the reader can guess why it bothers Maria and infer that she might indeed have a real mother after
To begin, the author, Gary Soto, uses the element of figurative language to portray that you need fear to grow up. He shows this to us when he writes, “They even went shopping for fall school clothes.” He helps build the theme by communicating that This creates a support for the theme because Soto might mean that not only did Maria change, her family did too. The school clothes might
She sometimes sits out by the creek and remembers her father telling her “I am your father, I will never abandon you.” (Cisneros 1) She remembers this only after she is a mother and this is when she realizes “How when a man and a woman love each other, sometimes that love sours. But a parent’s love for a child, a child’s for its parents, is another thing entirely.” (Cisneros 1) Surely by now she feels her love souring. She can not understand why Juan must drink all time and why he continues to beat after he promises that he will never do it again.
The relationship between Mariam and Laila grows overtime into an unbreakable love. Mariam is a vulnerable character that experienced hardships and negativity throughout her life. Her reliance on faith and religion gave her hope. Laila however, has had a positive upbringing from modern parents. Her education is what made her a strong and intelligent girl. Their personalities contrast to bring the best out of each other. However at first, in fear of being overshadowed by Laila, Mariam says “If [Laila] thinks [she] can use [her] looks to get rid of me, [she is] wrong. [Mariam] was here first. [She] won't be thrown out” (225). As Mariam has never been a priority to anyone in her life she was very defensive over her role in the house. As jealousy embarked upon Mariam,
“The hardest part about growing up is letting go of what you were used to, and moving on with something you’re not.” Growing up can be fantastic. Growing up can also be scary. Many people do it on their own time. Others must do it quickly. Some have a nurturing family and a wonderful environment in which to do this. Others still are not as fortunate. The point is that everyone’s situation is different, unique. No matter how similar one situation may seem from another there are countless other things that affect how a child might grow up. One’s own life may seem perfect to those on the outside looking in when in reality, there could be a constant struggle that is known to few or even none. For myself, growing up was something that had to
Maria is fifteen years old. Her mother reports that Maria has been performing poorly in school and has withdrawn from her family. This began after her transition to secondary school. Her performance further deteriorated when she began second year. Maria stopped participating in a number of her occupations including hockey, playing the piano, the girl guides, shopping with friends and going to the cinema. She now prefers to stay on the computer of listening to music.
The relationship between mother and daughter is very evident in this novel. It is implied by the priest that Maria has duties in the household and duties as a woman. François Paradis also knew that Maria would make a good housewife, one that would give wholly, love of the body and the soul that she would be a devoted spirit that would not waver.[6] These similarities are apparent when the daughter’s first love is represented by a symbolic abduction, (winter storm) that is followed by a return to her mother’s way of life. She generously accepts Gagnon as her husband, thus guaranteeing the continued existence of family,