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Growing Up By Gary Soto Analysis

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Along with growing up, one might go through the mood changes that becomes of every teenage girl, and the main one is resentment. Resentment: not being thankful for what one has, or fighting with what one has to get more, synonyms: animosity, grudge, antagonism, and animus. In “Growing Up” by Gary Soto, Maria the main character goes through the struggles of growing up that every teenage girl has when it comes to a family vacation. Soto gets this theme through in many ways including, tone and mood, symbolism, and characterization.
First, Soto uses tone along with mood, to influence the theme: Resenting what one has can draw regret when one doesn’t have it anymore. One event that reveals this is when Maria starts to reveal some mood towards her father because she doesn't want to go on family vacation with her family. Maria starts out just truthful, and honest. However, a chain reaction of retort and built up anger gets the most of her. Though at the beginning Maria is calm, collective, along with …show more content…

One representation of an event this is when Soto adds the detail of a newspaper, “ He sat at the table with the newspaper in front of him.” Soto used the symbol of the newspaper two other times though the expert. However, at this moment the newspaper can be a symbol that her family and her dads stories are “old news”, or repulsive and that the fact being discussed has happened, and has been interpreted already. In addition, Soto shows “ but most of the news was about warships in the Persian Gulf and a tornado in Texas,” which only empathizes to the idea that a war, or problems that are going on are a high problem. In a way, the war is like a “war zone” that Maria has put her family in, and is upagaints. In summary, The symbols from the story reinforces that theme that Resentment of what one has can draw regret when one doesn’t have it

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