Summary Of Short Story By Richard Rodriguez

In his short essay, Richard Rodriguez began with a reminiscence of his childhood Christmas filled with warmth and tenderness from his family. The joy of opening presents in the morning and seeing happiness within the family take a sudden turn when Rodriguez transition to the “listless” conversation and “uncomfortable” atmosphere of his annual Christmas celebration. He meticulously chose specific memories to foreshadow his mother’s dream, use of parentheses punctuation to give readers an insight of his thoughts, and crestfallen tone to display the relationship between the now fully grown children and their parents.

Rodriguez started off the passage by distinctly recalling his mother telling the children, “someday you will all grow up and all

He watched his mother waved toward “no one in particular,” with a sad face. Intrigued by his mother’s expression, Rodriguez questioned to himself if his mother’s sadness was because of the unpleasant Christmas gathering. He felt an urge, at that moment, to ask his mother what was wrong, “but these are questions of paradise.” And to him, paradise was his childhood that he grew with a loving, close knitted family. However, he knew his family was nowhere close to paradise because materialism had strayed his family apart. Therefore, if it was paradise then he would have asked her what was wrong, but he was not in paradise so he chose to stay quiet like he does throughout his narrative. Which can be supported by the many parentheses Rodriguez place throughout his writing especially during one of his family’s annual, Christmas gathering. Usually, people stay away from thinking about any issues within the family or their personal life when they are at parties or a family reunion, but Rodriguez did the opposite. He used this particular punctuation to show his acknowledgment of his family issues but choosing not to say anything or fix the problem because he knew it was pointless. Rodriguez also includes his parents’ physical feature, such as, how “small” his mother looked and the “thinness” of his father’s arm to depict the changes of his parents’ health and how the Rodriguez children left their parents behind. The children worked hard and eventually it paid off when they were able to afford extravagant materials and care for their own family, but they forgot to show their love and affection to the people who contributed to their success, their parents. At the end of the passage, Rodriguez purposely placed his realization of how far he had grown apart from his family, by mentioning his