Journey to Adolescence: A Fresno Childhood

Gary’s Understandings

It is often said that the setting of the story can change the character’s mentality and personality. In the classic vignette, A Summer Life, Gary Soto addresses his childhood to adulthood in Fresno in the course of a short vivid chapters. Born on April 12, 1952, a year before the Korean War ended, Gary experiences his life in Fresno of what he describes “what I knew best was at ground level,” and learns what is going on around the neighborhood with his religious background behind him. Later, when he realizes his father passes away, he undergoes hardships which cause his family to be miserable. Growing up in the heart of Fresno, Gary Soto, the author, explains his journey as a young man to adolescence through his use of figurative language and other adventures. The settings of this book revise Gary’s action and feelings around his surroundings.

Gary describes what he does when his parents leave to work, background on his house, and designation on the Buddha that his uncle had brought back from the Korean War. In the quote on page 4, Gary Soto relates the busy street of Van Ness with phrases like “bluish with diesels and large sedans,” and he explains it as the Buddha is actually alive and listening Gary talk to him. This clearly helps visualize how the avenue is looking like in my mind as if the mind were the real street. Also, the metaphor that he uses in “the grind of gears hurting the air” seems like the real gears hurting the air, and this authorizes the reader to focus more on the settings by how he describes in the land of Fresno, his hometown. Moreover, he gives the meaning to the readers that how diesels and large sedans hurt the environment on the street that he lived on.The setting can really be critical to the story by changing the rhythm and how it will affect the story later