A Summer Life By Gary Soto Analysis

In the excerpt from the autobiographical narrative A Summer Life by Gary Soto, his sublime six-year-old self relives his experience when the charm of the forbidden becomes unspeakably desirable. A young saint is put before a path that will ultimately lead him toward his fall from grace. He struggles with the “juices of guilt” as he quickly learns that curiosity is the lust of the mind.
To start the writer portrays to the reader his personal morals in a religious aspect by using a paradox. He describes himself as “holy in almost every bone.” Soto coordinates the ideas of him being nearly innocent with the fact that he still has demons that creep up on him. To bring to life the sin he is faced with, the author uses personification. As he is standing in front of the pies he states, “and my dear, fat-faced chocolate was always a good bet.” He gazes over each diverse pastry like as if he was gazing over different sins and deciding which one looks the most enticing.
The author sits underneath the “branches of a yellowish sycamore.” He exhibits that just as Eve approaches the tree to decide to sin and partake of the fruit, Gary Soto lets the aspiration of wonder affect his actions as he cowardly approaches the tree to partake in his pie. He associates his immorality with stories from the Bible. Soto reveals this by using allusion. The author is worried that “Eve got in deep trouble with snakes, and yet “that didn’t stop me from clawing a chunk from the pie tin and pushing it into the cavern of my mouth.” Adam and Eve did not want the apple for its taste. They were drawn to the fact that it was forbidden. Gary Soto is also mesmerized at the immorality of the prohibited and comes to the conclusion “that the best things in life came