Roberto Ignacio Torres Bake

Throughout the passage from “Roberto Ignacio Torres Bakes” and the passage from “The Dreamer,” Papi and Neftali change. Both of these characters had dreams that they ignored at first, but then embraced. Papi, a character from “Roberto Ignacio Torres Bakes,” dreamed of becoming a baker, while Neftali, a character from “The Dreamer,” dreamed of becoming a poet. Both of these characters are dynamic and they evolved throughout the passage.

In the passage from “Roberto Ignacio Torres Bakes,” Lita, Papi’s daughter, asks him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Papi replies by saying that he did what his father taught him: framing and construction. Lita then asks him what he dreamed to be when he was younger. Papi is indirect and says, “ I

dreamed to be a Papi.” Later, Lita find a pile of Papi’s recipes. She goes to the store and buys ingredients for Papi, but when she gets back home, he refuses to bake anything. Paragraphs 23-27 say, “What did you do, Lita?” I talk fast, the way my mamma used to when she and Papi disagreed. The words pop off my tongue like kettle corn. I tell Papi how Gilberto’s stand will be empty tomorrow and how they charge $2.75 for one square of chocolate streusel and how the croissants always sell out but that Papi’s baking, the thing about him that Mamma fell in love with and that the whole world would too if they could taste it, is better, and isn’t that his dream? To be a baker? He looks at me icy cold. “Did you keep the receipt, Carmelita?” “Yes, Papi.” “Go back to the store. Return everything.” At first, he refuses, not accepting his dream. Eventually, Lita wears him down and he relents. In the morning, they start selling Papi’s baking at the market, and everyone loves it. Papi is happy, and later that night, he tells Lita that when he was young he had dreamed about what he wanted to be when he grew up. Lita already knew what that was, and she was happy that Papi had finally achieved his dream.
In the passage from “The Dreamer,” Neftali is an aspiring poet, but he writes in secret.

Paragraph 2 says, “Father knew many people in Santiago, and Neftali could not take the chance that Father would discover he was disobeying him. Besides that, he could not stop thinking about what Father had said - that he was an embarrassment to the family.” He suppressed his dream, trying to hide it from his Father, until one day, he started reading a poetry book. He read about a character named Paolo, and said the name aloud. It didn’t feel right to him, so he translated it into Spanish, getting Pablo. At that point, he made a decision. He would use the name Pablo Neruda as a pseudonym so that his Father wouldn’t know that it was actually Neftali. The next day, Neftali left his home, so that he could go somewhere where he could write freely. Paragraphs 8-11 say, “The following morning, he slowly packed his belongings into a metal trunk: clothes, books, pens, and, of course, something for which he would never be too old - his sheep. He carefully sorted his collections into storage boxes, taking one box with him and taking the other to Laurita’s for safe keeping. He stood in the doorway and handed her the box. “Do not let it go up in flames.” She smiled. “I will guard it with my life.” That night and throughout the next day, he rode third class in a car full of peasants. It smelled of damp wool from rain-soaked ponchos and wet feathers from unhappy chickens that had been tucked into

baskets. But none of that bothered him because he was headed to a place of culture, a place with more like-minded people, where being a student and a poet would not be discouraged.” The new name gives him the courage to go out and achieve his dreams, and he did. He became a famous poet and won a Nobel Prize.
In both passages, the characters rejected their dreams, both because their fathers taught them something else. Neftali’s father openly disliked the fact that Neftali wanted to be a poet, while Papi’s father taught him how to work in construction and framing. Both characters had something that inspired them to achieve their dreams, Papi’s inspiration being Lita and Neftali’s his pseudonym - Pablo Neruda. Papi and Neruda eventually accepted their dreams, and in the end, they both became happy and successful.