Imagery in Buried Onions Essay

Buried Onions

There were many examples of predominate imagery in the novel Buried Onions.(Gary Soto) Heat, garbage, religion, death are just some examples. There are many parts in the book where you can find any of them. Even on the very first page he talks about death and tells us about four people that pass away. This book is a great book for someone to read about different races.

One example is death. In the very first page he tells us that His cousin Jesus is dead. That his dad died, and two uncles had passed away also. A couple lines down Eddie tells us his best friend from high school had died as well. He tells us on page three, all of them on their racks of black, black earth. Where he lived they would kill someone for little to any reason. On page three as well He had died all because he told another guy he had yellow shoes talking about his cousin. Through the hole book his life was even danger. Samuel had chased Eddie with a knife trying to stab him throughout most of the book. When Samuel goes after him with a knife he just gets away. Eddie is smarter than Samuel and he gets away but he knows that he can hurt him more than Samuel can hurt him.

When Eddie goes to the hospital to see his friend that got stabbed he sees Angle and he just kind of shrugs it when he is there, but when he leaves he is suspicious of Angle maybe killing him or hurting him. Eddie was told by one of his friends that Angle was the one who killed his cousin and Eddie kind of believes her.

Another example is heat. Eddie talks about heat over the whole book. He talks about how he thinks the heat makes the onions that are buried in the ground stronger and that makes everyone cry. Everyone cries because of all the death and the gangs. Eddie has a hard time because he cant really keep a job and when he got one he got accused of stealing the truck. He thinks he can trust him but he just calls the cops and gets Eddie arrested. Everyone is bitter I would say because of the heat. The kids are all trying to be in a gang. Eddie just wants to work, he goes to and paints stuff all day for crap money. The heat makes it hard for everyone to do anything.

Religion is a third example. The people in this book were crosses. In one part Eddie and Angel are talking and Angel has the cross in his mouth and Eddie says he is chewing on my savior. That shows how much that Eddie loves Jesus. Jesus is his savior, all though I didnt read that they go to church. But he believes and thats all that matters.

This book is full of examples some smaller than others and some of the examples are more detailed than others. Some stick out more to a person that is not looking for them but all you have to do is look this book is a great book to read if you want to see examples in religion people garbage and more. This book is a great book to read and it is the kind of book that if you sit down to read it you dont want to stop.