“The Rhetorical Analysis of Gary Soto Essay”
In his autobiographical narrative, Gary Soto recreates an experience with his guilty six-year-old self. Ultimately, he shares a story with his audience about how his younger self lost his innocence through stealing a pie. Through the effective use of rhetorical devices, Gary Soto achieves his purpose.
Pacing was one of the most useful rhetorical strategies used in his essay. In the beginning of the narrative, a slow pace was implied as Soto explained his “boredom” as he sat “underneath the house… looking for something to do”. He then felt anxious as the “juice of guilt” began to “[wet his] underarms” while he tried to decide which pie to steal. The pace drops to a moderate level after Soto is relieved that he was able to steal the pie and “no one saw” him do so. Soto’s relief was short lived as he went into a panic assuming that his neighbors were …show more content…
The contrast between fast and slow is present when Soto “raced his skinny legs to [his] block” after he believed to have seen his neighbor watching him just before he was able to take his first bite out of the pie, then “slowed” down his steps just as his pacing began to revert back to normal. As Soto began to eat the apple pie, he started “crying because it was the best thing [he] ever tasted” then later, as the pace of the essay began to intensify, the “tears blurred [his] eyes” as he thought of the “grocer’s forehead”. During the time Soto was going through the motions after he stole the pie, he makes several mentions to the “sun”, “heat”, and his “[thirst]” until the end of the narrative where he feels the “cool shadows”, “cold pipe”, and is able to “drink water” after he concluded that what he had done could not be undone. The contrast between these concepts were used effectively to demonstrate the guilt felt by the guilty six-year-old