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The tattooed soldier;s sociohistorico context
The tattooed soldier;s sociohistorico context
Culture in the tattooed soldier
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Downtown Los Angeles is one of the busiest commercial centers in the United States. However, the city holds two groups of people in different economic level-the homeless and the working class. Hector Tobar frequently includes the landscape of the setting in downtown Los Angeles in The Tattooed Soldier. The novel is about two immigrants from Guatemala who have moved to Los Angeles. The protagonist, Antonio, takes a revenge on the antagonist, Longoria because he murdered Antonio's wife and son when he was a Guatemalan soldier. Tobar applies a number of metaphors to connect the buildings and freeways in downtown to Antonio's position in the city. Buildings, freeways, and shadows are metaphors for Antonio's economic and social status.
Tobar uses description of buildings to reinforce Antonio's economic and social position in life. He informs the reader about the squat apartment buildings when the protagonist is on the way to a homeless camp, which have a significant contrast with the skyscrapers where Antonio observes later. Everyone can see the skyscrapers, but not many people know the existence of the short apartments. Tobar uses the invisibility of these apartments to reflect the inferiority of the protagonist in Los Angeles. Antonio's existence is the least significant as an illegal immigrant. He is seen as a parasite that is not accepted by the city. The apartment owner, Hwang, even forces him to leave with a call to the police (9). On the other hand, the auth...
In Hector Tobar´s The Tattooed Soldier, we are introduced to the main antagonist, Longoria. He is an ex-Guatemalan soldier who works for an international shipping company. Throughout the story, we come to learn that he served under the military unit Jaguar, a special ops unit that is known to strike fear into the hearts of the native Guatemalan guerrillas. Longoria sees himself as a honorable soldier who feels “pride in his work” (246), while in contrast, Antonio, a man whose family was killed by Longoria, views him as the man who kills in cold blood. He is quite ruthless at times as seen when “he swung his arm in a broad arc and slapper her across the face”, her being an old woman who happened to find out about his Jaguar past.(165). His actions such as this one are due to his intense military experience that transformed him from a farm bumpkin to a hardened soldier.
When Kaplan enters the United States at the Nogales port of entry, what he calls the “Rusty Iron Curtain,” he speaks of a transformation in socioeconomic structure, which he basically summarizes by comparing to hotels. A Mexican one, only two years old where the doors don’t close properly and the walls are cracking, and an American one, which after more than a quarter century is still in “excellent condition, from the fresh paint to the latest-model fixtures.
After Mexican’s sign of Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty, there has been plenty of complains in the Don Alamars family, worrying that their legal rights would be questioned by the U.S. government. As far as l am concerned, the role that Don Alamars was portrayed was a traditional Mexican man who was stick to feudal orders and the conventions of Mexicans. In The Squatter and the Don, the love story between Mercedes and Clarence can be regarded as the main story pattern that intrigued the interest of the readers. Ruiz de Burton portrayed Clarence as a brave and reasonable young man who posed different attitude towards native California resident (the Mexicans), and who fall in love with daughter of the Darrells. From this regard, Clarence can be regarded as a knight who fight for the integration of Mexican-American culture and the tense relationship between the two groups. Mercedes is another important character in this novel, who shouted out voice towards stereotypes and prejudices. As the description of the scene when Clarence first met with Mercedes, she was a shy girl and afraid of intruding the rules and traditional regulations. However, her final decision of getting married with Clarence can also be considered as a breakthrough to the rigid conventions represented by her father and her
Slick showed Rios the “hotspots” where life shapes these youth environments. The structure, as well as the constraints, that shape these young boys life in the neighborhood, slick points out a corner where one of his best friends got shot by a drive-by shooting. The lifestyle of these young boys is tragic.
Evil is omnipresent, but it cannot be clearly perceived without an unbiased understanding of its intent and motivation. In “The Tattooed Soldier”, this sense of evil is depicted in the two main characters, Antonio Bernal and Guillermo Longoria. The book is set in the late 20th century era of Los Angeles, where the city is in a state of riot and utter chaos. The story focuses on Antonio, a political refugee from a dictated Guatemala, and Longoria, a former member of the Guatemalan death squad. They came to Los Angeles from the same country, but their beliefs and actions differ severely. When their paths cross, Antonio is struck with fear, because he recognizes Longoria as the tattooed soldier who killed his family. The encounter triggers a flashback
because he is a poor Mexican living in the projects. The title of the novel is a metaphor. It was from a
All through their lives Pharoah and LaFayette are surrounded by violence and poverty. Their neighborhood had no banks, no public libraries no movie theatres, no skating rinks or bowling allies. Drug abuse was so rampant that the drug lords literally kept shop in an abondoned building in the progjects, and shooting was everywhere. Also, there were no drug rehabilitation programs or centers to help combat the problem. Police feared going into the ghetto out of a fear for their own safety. The book follows Pharoah and LaFayette over a two year period in which they struggle with school, attempt to resist the lure of gangs, mourn the death of close friends, and still find the courage to search for a quiet inner peace, that most people take for granted.
The two brothers have both chosen different paths, one embracing his new society, becoming a part of the establishment, the other rejecting it and working for the oppressed immigrant community of the gang. These communities are often ignored in society and face a great deal of discrimination. The film does not attempt to sugar-coat their criminality or excuse their actions. It simply offers us a realistic look at their circumstances and asks the audience to judge for themselves what is right and wrong in
Los Angeles, California is often seen as the city of dreams. Hollywood paints the picture of Los Angeles as a place of endless possibilities. Los Angeles is also thought as the city where dreamers can come with nothing in their pocket and become an over night success story. Many Americans and immigrants come to Los Angeles with the same dream of success. In The Tattooed Soldier Tobar describes how this fictionalized “American dream” version of the Los Angeles affects immigrants. In the novel Tobar followed two Guatemalan immigrants Antonio and Longeria who live very different lifestyles in their home country and in America. Los Angeles seemed to be the land of dreams and promise to both characters, however; Los Angeles becomes a place of harsh reality for Antonio and Longeria. In the novel we watch how Antonio and Longeria adjust to the struggles of being immigrants in Los Angeles, , and what makes man a man.
In the first short story The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is outside her apartment building where she lives with her siblings and parents. They six were Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, Nenny, and Esperanza. She describes the place they were living in by saying that it was on the third floor of an old building and as well said " The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn't fix them because the house was too old...We were using the washroom next door and carrying water over in empty milk gallons" (Cisneros 4). Esperanza and her family are going through hardships because of the landlord, even when they are paying their rent. She describes the apartment building as old and useless to the owner, this means that the building has to be very torn down for someone who owns it not to care about it. Esperanza begins to experience difficulties at a young age by having to shower with water from the washroom, they did not even use buckets which can indicate that they did not own one. Usually it is minorities who as well recycle the bottles they buy to give them...
What are you fighting for-the Cause. The Cause is one of the theme's in The Killer Angels, and is mentioned frequently throughout the book.
In the short story “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty, the sniper is a man caught in a tragic situation. First of all, when the sniper had killed the old lady and the man from the turret, the text states, “The sniper looked at his enemy falling and he shuddered. The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse” (O’Flaherty 214). This states how the sniper feel guilty or responsible for the enemies death even though he was only doing his job. As he shivered, he feels sorrow for the death of them yet has to keep doing his job. In addition, the end of the story shows how the sniper reacts when he finds out who the enemy sniper he had killed was. The author writes, “Then the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s
The film recreates Los Angeles in the early 1950’s for the young soon to be Slauson founding fathers – constant neglect and exclusion from primarily white organizations. Regular rejection by white fraternities prompted the black youth to create their own. With no place to develop their own sense of identity, gang culture offered a newfound sense of belonging and safety that was otherwise out of reach. The Los Angeles Police Department was a predominant advocator for the perceived criminality of African Americans: monitoring invisible, social barriers and questioning those who veered from those supposed boundaries. Kumasi describes the typical African American man west of Alameda Street as a walking time bomb, “the question was upon whom,” he
The Character analysis , the narrator is a helpful friend that went to see and check up on the usher and what's been going on with his circumstances . The narrator is concerned about usher and his family’s health. The narrator notices how the health of him and his sister at the house taking a tole on all of them is poorly failing and falling apart. Usher is in bad condition he also is sick and not living healthy,Usher’s sister health is also falling apart. But her sickness is unknown of what's going on.
In general conclusion, T.C Boyle, author of the novel, The Tortilla Curtain, expressed the isolation of Mexicans in an American society by appointing his Mexican protagonist to be shaded as a no-good, scumbag, "beaner" (62) from the spiteful tones, his serious irony on the Americans perspective, and the delinquent, dirty, rotten, symbolism. The overall usage of literary deviced divulge Cándido Rincon as isolated by his hopeless endeavors for an exemplary life to ultimately reveal America as gruelling and unrelenting towards the Mexican illegals of the state in today's society.