W5 Close Reading of Burton
Burton is a writer who is able to evoke multiple feelings from us as a reader, and allows for the change in emotion depending on how many times we had re-read her writing. It makes the story strong and interesting to look at again and makes the reader want to find details they missed before. She is also effective at setting up the story so that she can get to her point she would like us to take from her stories.
This was the very first passage in the story about the Treaty. It’s only the first sentence but it sets up the scene very well I feel. Burton kind of gives that longing, romantic feeling with this, but yet that’s not what the story is about. Once you read the story though and come back to it, you realize it’s more of a desperate longing. The “maybe I could of warned them” feeling. Since the story discusses the stealing of lands by Americans moving west post war with Mexico, you then can realize this isn’t a long distance relationship, but rather helping out a brother. Both mini stories about the treaty which disadvantaged the people from previously Mexico, but one in northern and one in souther California, and shows some of the unfair treatments. The use of wishing that maybe so many years ago if we had the tech Now, we could still have our farms. Coming back to this line after reading it gave me that really sad feeling.
Not only does this sentence evoke different feelings before and after reading, but it also sets up the time and place quickly, and establishes our characters. I think the way Burton did this quickly helps her be able to get to what she wants us to learn much faster, since then she can focus on the changing laws instead.
Burton, Maria. The Squatter and the Don. “California Literature,” University of California Press, 2000. Pg. 244.
Hi Michelle,
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate how Burton depict the Treaty of Guadalupe of Hidalgo has little victory for many Californios who owned lands that Anglo-Saxon race took and cultivate from it. After cultivating. they used its profit to fight for that land that they stole from many Californios landowners. The expose that Burton described showed that she too have some apprehension from retaliation from Anglo-Saxon, that she uses a pen name "C. Loyal". Born into an elite Mexican family, Burton just wants to tell a sharp expose of the common practice of "squatting" and proud defender of wronged and misled culture.
Thank you
Ginalyn
Hey Michelle,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts on this passage from The Squatter and the Don. I like how you pointed out the fact the meaning of this passage changed for you after reading it for the second time. I think that it often turns out that way, whether reading a book or watching a movie or anything, once you go back over it again you begin to see the smaller details or , like in your case, you can see the foreshadowing of a certain passage or scene. For this reason, whenever I really like a book or movie, I always like to go over it again to get more of a complete picture of the content.