How To Eat a Guava

554 Words3 Pages
1. I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of both the introduction and the conclusion. Santiago chose to use a descriptive lead-in to inspire emotional appeal within her readers. In this respect, I did find the introduction to be effective because I instantly pictured myself in one of the various antiquated grocery stores in Hawaii, picking up an exotic fruit that I had never even held before. As a matter of fact, the “Hannaford” grocery store in the town where I attended school from 2nd – 12th grade used to be a “Shop n’ Save”, which brought forth actual memories from my childhood. Other than that, I was quite confused when I read the introduction at first and tried to comprehend it from a very literal viewpoint. I thought to myself, where is the thesis statement regarding eating a guava? Then I remembered that Dr. Dutton mentioned that there was some good symbolism in this piece, which I was completely unable to ascertain by reading the introduction alone. Like the introduction, I also found the conclusion to be effective in its description and imagery. Now realizing that the chapter obviously has nothing to do with literally eating a guava, I have tried my best to decipher the symbolism of each paragraph. I don’t think that I could accurately predict what the chapter is going to be about from reading only the introduction and the conclusion, so perhaps that says something about the effectiveness as well. What I did deduce from the introduction paragraph as well as the title of her book is that she most likely grew up in Puerto Rico or someplace where they did not have a “Shop n’ Save”. I also think that the guava may have reminded her of her childhood, and imaginably herself as a child when she was “not quite ripe”. As for the conclusion, when she puts back the guava and moves onto the ‘fruit of her adulthood’ which she refers to as being
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