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What Is The Theme Of The Challenge By Gary Soto

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“The Challenge” Theme Essay Lying to people can be risky. In the short story, “The Challenge,” by Gary Soto Jose learns just how difficult it can be to lie without getting caught. The main character in this story is Jose. He has a crush on a girl Estella and wants to impress her. Jose decides to lie to her to make himself look cooler. In the story, “The Challenge,” by Gary Soto, the protagonist, Jose, learns that lying won't get you far in life. In the beginning, Jose makes a bad choice by lying to Estella when challenging her to a racquetball game. Jose doesn’t want Estella to know that he doesn't play racquetball. Jose never played racquetball, but he claims he is “pretty good” (Soto 2). This evidence shows that Jose really likes Estella. It also shows that he is so desperate to get her attention. This choice will affect him because now Estella thinks he is really good and thinks he will be …show more content…

Jose kept worrying about his lies. He needed to borrow his uncles racquetball racket. He realized that he is going to get crushed unless he learns how to play. “But you don’t know how to play. Jose had been worrying about this on his bike ride over” (Soto 3). This evidence shows that he is worried because it says he was worrying about it on his bike ride over. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Estella like he was embarrassed in front of the other girl. Jose gets home and starts to worry. He starts to realizes what he did and how this lie will effect him. “But Jose’s mind twisted with worry” (Soto 3). This connects to the idea that it was a bad choice to lie to her. He doesn’t want to show up and be horrible, but he doesn’t know what to do. This is going to affect him because now he has to learn how to play racquetball in a day. Not only does he have to know the rules, but he needs to be good to cover his

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