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Salvador Late Or Early By Sandra Cisneros Summary

Decent Essays

Characterization is shown through indirect and direct stories. Indirect is when the author does not go straight out and tell the reader characteristics, but direct is a five letter acronym known as S.T.E.A.L. These individual letters stand for say, think, effect, actions, and look. Say stands for what the character says throughout the story, think is what the character imagines or says in his or her mind that only the reader and the narrator know, effect stands for what effect the characters' actions play with others within the story, actions stands for what the character physically does within the story, and look is what the characters physical features are and how they develop characterization. Sandra Cisneros develops great characterization throughout both …show more content…

Immediately, the characterization traits that are expected to arise include looks, actions, and the effect on others. There is no dialogue in this story and it takes place in third person which is why say and think would be hard to come by. Cisneros uses characterization in “Salvador Late or Early” through the physical looks of Salvador mostly. The reason why she does this is to develop great imagery in the reader’s mind of what characteristics he contains. In the story, she mentions, “… Salvador of the crooked hair and crooked teeth” (“Salvador Late or Early” 1). This is shown to portray that Salvador is poor because he can’t afford to get a haircut or maybe braces for his crooked teeth. Another example, in the story was when Cisneros mentioned, “Salvador inside that wrinkled shirt, inside the throat that must clear itself and apologize every time it speaks, inside that forty-five pound body of boy with its geography of scars” (“Salvador Late or Early” 1). This obviously shows that Salvador is going through a hard time as we can see through the wrinkled shirt and the scars. This is a way

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