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Analysis Of Ode To The First White Girl I Ever Loved By Jose Olivarez

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Many poems are about power and authority, but this poem shows it in a different way. Jose Olivarez wrote a poem called “Ode to the First White Girl I Ever Loved”. This poem was about the author's experiences with the white girls in his kindergarten class including his actions, feelings, and thoughts. The poem later goes on to talk about how these experiences change and shape him as an adult. Jose Olivarez uses structure, tone, and symbolism in this poem to highlight the theme that a lack of power can help you to grow and change a person in unexpected ways. Jose Olivarez uses structure in his poem to highlight that a lack of power can help you to grow and change a person in unexpected ways. The author talks about how he wished he could speak …show more content…

The poem starts off with the author being very gloomy and outcasted. A quote that shows this is “Everyone was rich and white/ My family was poor and Mexican” (Olivarez 18-19). This quote shows the tone of this poem and explains the comparison between him and everyone else. He is hurt and has no one to help him because no one is like him. These feelings of isolation and outcast later help the author to grow into the person he is. Toward the end of the poem the tone changes and becomes an at ease or comfortable feeling. A quote that illustrates this is “And I tell them in Spanish/ how beautiful they are./ And they are more beautiful and lovely/ than all the white women in the world” (Olivarez 60-63). This quote shows a change in the author’s thinking. He illustrates that he is more comfortable now because he is speaking Spanish to these women and he no longer feels isolated or outcasted. This shows a large amount of growth and shows that he is getting more comfortable being himself. These quotes showed how Jose Olivarez used tone to highlight that a lack of power can help you to grow and change in unexpected

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