In the story “Broken Chain” by Gary Soto, the protagonist Alfonso struggles with self-esteem. Alfonso was not confident in himself, he wanted to change himself so girls could like him. This is seen on page 17 when it says, “He hated the way he looked last week he did 50 sit ups a day, thinking he would burn those apparent ripples on his stomach to even deeper ripples, dark ones, so when he went swimming at the canal, girls in cutoffs would notice.” This proves that he was not confident in his body, he wanted to do fifty sit ups a day to get where he wanted to be so girls would look at him and like him immediately. Another reason the story shows he 's not confident in himself is when Alfonso gets a haircut that he sees in a magazine. This is