Preview

Analysis Of Tomas Rivera's And The Earth Did Not Devour Him

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
633 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of Tomas Rivera's And The Earth Did Not Devour Him
While reading the first half of the book of Tomas Rivera's short story “And the Earth Did Not Devour Him,” Rivera tells the story about a young boy who has severely struggled to understand how exactly he has lost a year in his life. Rivera starts the book with the boy thinking about when the last year began and ended. He experiences reality as well as memories as he tries to adjust his mind. So far, many themes of literature can be seen in the book including racism and education. I also noticed the many self-held thoughts of conversation by the young boy as he struggles to remember his lost year.
So far through half the book, all the titles of the chapters foreshadow on what that chapter is going to primarily be about. Rivera’s story begins with the chapter called “The
…show more content…
The title “The Lost Year” is symbolism in which the author does not define why a year is lost or if it is even a year. In “The Children Couldn’t Wait,” the chapter foreshadows an angry man who is the boss of a farm who shoots a worker’s very young son as the child drinks from a water supply, hence the child being the victim and that he couldn’t wait for water in the title. In the third chapter “A Prayer,” it (in a short summary) tells of a man’s son fighting in Vietnam where a prayer is needed. In the fourth chapter “It’s That It Hurts,” the name of the chapter foreshadows a Mexican boy who is jumped by white boys in a school bathroom and is the only student expelled as a result of his minority. In “Hand in His Pocket,” the title foreshadows the telling of a young boy who is sent by his parents to live with a Mexican couple. The family murders an old man just for his money, then force the boy to help them bury the body hence the “hands in his pocket” title to keep quiet and that he saw nothing. In the sixth chapter “A Silvery Night,” the young boy calls the devil then later concludes that the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Chapter 4 - Luis's brother Joe becomes an athlete, doing well in school, and playing bass in a band. Luis decides to play saxaphone. He buys one and learns the instrument, but Joe stomps on it after they have an argument. Luis goes to a fiesta and meets a beautiful young girl named Viviana. They spend the entire night together. He has to leave her because she is a lomas girl. The enemy of his group of latinos, the sangras. He works as a bus boy for a restaurant. Police come in looking for illegal immigrants, but fortuanaley he has his papers. He is expelled from school.…

    • 725 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The image I chose is Man, Controller of the Universe, created by Diego Rivera in 1934. It was a remake of a piece he did for the Rockefellers to be viewed in their RCA building. The original piece was called Man at the Crossroads. It clearly showed that the artist favored communism over capitalism, which caused controversy. It also had Lenin holding together the hands of people of various race.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The tale of Santiago Nasar’s final days is weaved together collectively by the memories of the townspeople. The narrator, a nameless protagonist, interviews the inhabitants of his hometown twenty-seven years later, in order to “put the broken mirror of memory back together from so…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is also a lot of symbolism within the first chapter. The narrator states how when he was younger, he remembers “staring through a crumbling mud wall”, this is a metaphor for the political state…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The following is a summary on the short essay The Dark Night of the Soul by Richard E Miller. This short essay is an essay that has been written with a main point always in mind, that reading and writing has very powerful influences people and their imagination but, the act of reading and writing is not being utilized as much in the modern world. Richard has created an essay that proves his point by taking five very different short stories and giving each a twist that helps the reader see the power of reading. As the reader is chronologically going through the essay he or she is given many possible meanings of the essay. The meaning and the relationships that the stories share are not revealed until the last page of the essay.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Junot Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated with his family to New Jersey, where a collection of his short stories are based from. Out of that collection is a short story “Fiesta, 1980”, which was featured in The Best American Short Stories, 1997. This story is told from the perspective of an adolescent boy, who lives in the Bronx of northern New Jersey with his family. He is having trouble understanding why things are the way they are in his family. Diaz shows Yunior’s character through his cultures, his interaction with his family, and his bitterness toward his father.…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story, “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner, ten year old, Sarty struggles between doing the right thing or betraying his father. In “Doe Season” by David Kaplan, nine year old, Andy struggles in trying to be the boy her father never had or the girl she really is. In both of the short stories, with the help of the character relationships and conflicts, the authors portray the theme of children finding themselves. [Thesis]…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salvador Late or Early

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the short story “Salvador Late or Early”, by Sandra Cisneros, Cisneros uniquely describes the main character Salvador. She uses detail, imagery, and diction to characterize Salvador in her short story.…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Time is a key element that results in the eventual ‘change in perspective’ this can be made visible through Farjeon’s poem “It was long ago”. The feature of past tense is effectively conveyed throughout the poem “It was long ago”. The composer utilizes this feature to implement the idea of the protagonist reminiscing on her pleasant childhood memories. This ultimately allows the responder to understand the life of the protagonist before her outlook on life altered. Life was simpler and was much more enjoyable for the protagonist. This is made evident through the uncomplicated structure of the poem; also the basic pronouns employed by the poet “grey” “red”; these pronouns are basic but have a deeper meaning they express the simplicities of ‘childhood’ and explore how a child perceives everything around them to be significant. The central character has grown and matured through time, it is made clear that everyday duties and responsibilities that have been thrust upon her has essentially developed her point of view on existence from a positive perception to a dull and depressing…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Signatures and Apples

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A young girl and boy take their first steps toward forging their identities. In Julia Alvarez’s “Dusting,” a girl decides that she wants to be more than a diligent housekeeper like her mother. In Alberto Rios’s “In Second Grade Miss Lee I Promised Never to Forget You and I Never Did,” a boy catches his first glimpse of romantic love by listening to his unconventional teacher. Both of these children learn important lessons about life from significant adults. And both Alvarez and Rios use strong figurative language to convey their feelings about these important formational moments from childhood.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Old Man and the Sea

    • 1339 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In life, one will go through a number of stages in life. Infancy, Youth , Adulthood, and…

    • 1339 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Diego Rivera, an essay

    • 326 Words
    • 1 Page

    Diego Rivera México (1886-1957) Diego Rivera's art was one of the columns on which one of the strongest movements in American painting was to find support: Mexican muralism. His art rests on a foundation from a mixture of Gauguin, Aztec, and Mayan sculpture. Diego Rivera, used simplified forms and vivid colors. He brilliantly rescued the pre-Colombian past, as well as the cornerstones of Mexico's history: the land, the factory and land workers, the customs and the popular way of life.…

    • 326 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Loss of family, whether a physical or emotional disconnect, can have a profound effect on a person, which shows itself even in the smallest detail. In his book Hunger of Memory, Rodriguez relives this loss in a passage describing Christmas in his family. He reveals his sadness and even guilt, along with a strong sense of irony, through his selection of detail and word choice to show the stark contrast between then and now, and the divide that exists within his family.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Hunger Of Memory Analysis

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In his autobiography, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez discusses his early life as the son of Mexican immigrant parents and the beginning of his schooling in Sacramento, California. Knowing only a finite number of English words, the American life is an entirely new atmosphere for Rodriguez and his family. Throughout his book, Rodriguez undergoes a series of changes and revelations that not only hurts him but enhances him. It’s the journey of a young man who experiences alienation that changes his way of life before assimilating into the world of education. Rodriguez was submitted into a first-rate Catholic school in the white suburbs of Sacramento,…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Alchemist

    • 2063 Words
    • 9 Pages

    3. The climax of this novel is when Santiago is struggling to turn himself into the wind, and depending in the result of this action, Santiago will be able to save his and the Alchemist live from dead. The chief of the tribesman would kill…

    • 2063 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays