Sacrifice For Love In The Poem Oranges By Gary Soto

In the Poem “Oranges” by Gary Soto the theme of the piece is, to sacrifice for others in the name of love is worth everything you have. the theme of the story, though, is improved upon by literary devices. The first literary device present in the poem is Simile. The simile helps compare the items in the story that the main character talks about or saw while in the Drugstore with his girl on the date. While going through the store he comes across candies that were “tiered like bleachers”( Soto, 26), there were so many choices and his girl picked out the chocolate on one of the shelves, although what she picked out was more expensive than he thought and couldn’t afford it. When paying for the bar of chocolate which his girl picked out, he couldn’t pay for it

Imagery helps make the place, setting and environment or objects in the moment which the main character and his girlfriend are in, in that point in time or what he is talking about right then, easy to imagine and is very descriptive. This literary device still connects with the theme of sacrifice for love in the poem and describes many things the character saw or felt seem like you were there with him. When the main character makes the trade, the money he had and the one orange for the chocolate bar, he describes the feeling after with the other orange left as “that, from some distance, someone might have thought I was making a fire in my hand.”( Soto, 54) For giving up what he had for the girl he loved the orange represented generosity, kindness, and of course, love. The author also describes the weather around him on that day to make the setting seem real with many descriptions. When the author first takes the girl out on that date the weather is ”Gray of December”( Soto, 53) and the way the winter weather makes the snow and ice “crack before my steps” ( Soto, 5) while trying to make it to the girl’s house, again sacrificing for the love he