Gary Soto The Pie Analysis

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On April 12.1952 Gary Soto was born to Mexican-American parents who lived a traditional Catholic lifestyle. He grew up indoctrinated in his family’s religious lifestyle. When he aged and decided on becoming a writer, he realized he could find humor and solace by looking back on instances like that of The Pie Essay. To convey to the reader how guilty, he felt from his naivety he approaches the subject with an infantile and an overtaxed narration. His humorous tale of his guilty six year old conscious after stealing a pie reflects the intensity at which a child takes religious moral code and the naivety they have towards the world. It also resonates with the casual reader who too might have gone through similar experiences. Gary Soto opens his narration by painting a picture of his virtuous intentions and to show his …show more content…
Johnny is a symbol of Gary’s omnipresent God who always watches him even if it is in vain. Soto has a mental flashback with his teeth “bathed with the jam like filling” of the “pie crust” where he remembers all of the steps after he stole the pie vividly. The image of him gluttonously eating pie is grotesque, so that it juxtaposes him with a kind a shy child (Johnny) and portrays him in a negative light that reflects on his feelings for himself after breaking yet another sin. The flashback serves the purpose of suggesting he is once again feeling guilty by showing his current actions and comparing to the original one that made him feel regretful. Johnny becomes peeved at Gary for not letting him have pie and saying “Your hands are dirty”. This causes the reader to feel a pit in their stomach and feel sorry for Gary who takes the situation to seriously. The metaphor reiterates the idea that the further into the situation he gets, the more sin he commits such as not sharing his pie. It also implies that Cross-Eyed Johnny, like God can see his sins through his dirty
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