IF IT IS ABOUT ALLEGORIES…

“Sarita's shoes" and “Fruit candy and gray eyes"

An allegory is a story that is told as a message or representation where the themes that are talked about have a symbolic meaning, an artistic or literal representation that forms into a deep and continuous metaphor. These 2 stories, although with different themes, tell a huge message with a social impact that reference phases that happened and have been happening in our society. On the first one, a young child whose birthday ended up a bit different than what is considered normal although it has a homey ambience and how the guests express themselves with their friends and relatives which could cause a few slight touching. On the other hand, two brothers who since very young have been living  on the streets trying  to gain money, but one day on the fall, the imaginable happens, and everything becomes harder and difficult to one of the two children to know how to deal with that problem he's gotten into.

The similarities between these both books are of how they treat with strong themes for a young audience, but it gets us to think of how necessary is knowing about what is happening around us. The main theme of these both books are that they are happening around children's lives, so the message given is harder to get but at the same times gives a big impact on us because of the fact of how a little child's innocence that lives on such conditions can think or believe about adult stuff. Another point that these stories share is that the people that are closer to the protagonists (Tomás and the birthday boy) are young girls, whose relationship could be familiar or not, take a really important role which is being with the protagonist and being their "weak point" because the protagonist lets itself be convinced by them. Also, at the moment they get separated, an anxious, scary and worrying ambiance generates, this is exacty when those delicate themes are touched; For example: When Tomás realized his sister was gone when seeing the newspaper, where some words where marked on black. He got into a state of constant desperation and fear for trying to find his sister and go back to being safe with her although he knows how risky selling on the streets was and also that something Tomás knew well: that if something gets lost or suddenly disappears, it wasn't just a coincidence. The strongest theme on this is The Treatment to Children and the Exploitation of Children Employment, which is something quite recurring in our society because of the constant need of selling and buying to live. On the other hand, the result that is produced on a child's birthday is knowing that being with their cousins and uncles who are rude (without considering the Family's situation, the constant claims of ¿Why don't they go live somewhere further away?), indifferent (their vulgar way of looking at their surroundings and how they talk to their cousin), temperamental (Not knowing of creating a healthy and creative ambience other than the technological aspect and tending to get angry easily), sadistic (Lucrecia enjoyed looking at how the birthday boy's father was spanking Negrita for messing up his shoes). Here can be seen despising and envious acts against their own family and animal cruelty (for their own embarrassment).

As a final statement, these two stories of seeming childish themes is actually a wolf on sheeps clothing, it hides the actual obscure allegory it wants to give. These messages that are too raw to be on a children's book have as a consequence the eradication of their own audience as well as the context that is that is given, the space and time that these circumstances are in and on the best of cases it will achieve that the audience gets the message and thinks about it with positivity, but on the worst of the cases is that there's a possibility of a specific group that feels identified with that situation and not achieve the objective that the story is trying to achieve.

4 °año

profesora Coria

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