Analysis of The Somebody - Essay Example

He considered owning all the things, places and buildings where he signed his name and looked at himself as somebody, a popular person who has a reputation of his own. The story is written in simple narration where the author used words and conversations used mainly among street people to adapt to the attributes of the characters. The main character claims he is Mexican whereby, unsophisticated English words are used and being a gang member, the narrator uses phrases commonly used like the use of the word ‘man’.

For instance when Chato commented about what happened to the houses in his neighborhood, he said, “I hope that never happens to your street, man”. He used the phrase to speak to his reader or audience regardless of gender. The use of figurative speech is abundant in the story making it an interesting narrative, catching the attention of readers, letting them pause and think about what they could possibly mean. The figures of speech also stir the imaginations of audiences to the picture the author wants to paint in their minds, making the events and characters come alive.

“The toilet roars like a hot rod taking off” is a simile used in the story which portrays the whooshing sound made by the toilet bowl when it is flushed. The terms could also imply that the toilet sound is louder than it should be, making it appear in the reader’s mind that the setting is in a poor family’s house where repairs or change of materials are not done even when badly needed. Other figurative connotation used as a simile is “like a ghost in the graveyard”, which describes the narrators way of walking down the street, allowing the reader to imagine that he was walking alone in a dark, abandoned road.

The figures of speech help the reader to have a clear picture of the images the author wants to portray through the words of the main character which was done quite successfully. About his writing, Chato describes it in the same fashion as, “It’s real smooth and mellow, and curvy like a blond in a bikini”. The comparison of two unlike things is used in this description which may have been an exaggeration but to the author, might have reached his goal of putting the penmanship of the character beside a curvy woman’s naked body to show how attractive is writing is.

Metaphor was also used in the narration of the main character as he described the legs of her mother with the following phrase, “Her legs got those dark blue rivers running all over them”. He used the image of rivers to describe the varicose veins on her mother’s legs which could have been correctly represented because as the rivers carry water or fluid, the veins do the same however, they carry blood. Rivers when seen from afar are colored blue but the representation of the author about the varicose veins mentions them to be dark blue.

The author also used personification in the story, making things perform human actions. For example, he said about the houses being destroyed by the bulldozers and wrecking bars of S.P. Railroads, “You could hear those houses scream when they ripped them down”. Houses cannot scream but the author used the word probably to inform readers about how the owners had no other choice but to let their houses be bulldozed against their will. It could also be that he was referring to the noise made in the midst of the wrecking of the houses, the sound of bars and hammerings and probably made a parallelism to how a person would react if one is ripped off or destroyed.

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