Scribbles Soto Analysis

The story “Scribbles” by Pedro Juan Soto deals with a Puerto Rican family facing poverty, and their new life in America. There’s Graciela, an overloaded and worn-down woman and her husband Rosendo, who is struggling to provide for their family. At first glance, this story is just about a typical day in their stressful lives, but by the end it becomes apparent that this day had much broader implications than originally thought. Although Scribbles seems to be about a singular failing marriage, it is truly about the failings of the American Dream as a whole. This American dream is defined by its ability to convince people they will get to the top by doing the right things. This marriage is clearly unstable, and this is a result of the problems that …show more content…
Rosendo wants to be a painter, demonstrated by Graciela’s view of him, “You only care about your scribbles. The artist!” (60). He paints a sign and sells it for a little money, allowing him to buy presents for his kids for Christmas. Next he decides he should paint a picture for Graciela to help their marriage. Here the reader is presented with the thought process behind his decision, “for Graciela he would paint a picture. A picture that would summarize their life together, in the midst of deprivation and frustration” (60). However, what Rosendo fails to realize is the tasks Graciela is forced to do well he paints, “Graciela was coming and going in the basement, scolding the children, putting away the laundry, watching the lighted burners on the stove” (61). She wants some real progress to be made for their family, and from her point of view she is pregnant, and her husband is saying she just needs to piss in a bucket so he can sneakily draw naked people on the wall of their family bathroom. In essence, he’s just given Graciela another thing to worry

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