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                       Taste of Sin (Pie essay)

            Gary Soto begins his story by showing his childhood. In his autobiographical narrative he shifts from childlike innocence to guilty sin using religious allusion, vivid imagery, and flashback to show that actions of sin can cause personal struggle.

            Soto seemed to be a religious person a references this throughout his narrative. His autobiography starts by mentioning how his knowledge of hell stopped him from sinning. “I knew enough about hell to stop me from stealing. I was holy in almost every bone.” This quote shows Soto’s religious affiliation, when referencing hell and holy, as a religious allusion and it’s an example of Soto’s childlike innocence. “In my front yard, I leaned against a car fender and panicked about stealing the apple pie. I knew an apple got Eve in deep trouble with snakes….” This quote references the original sin of stealing an apple and Sotto compares this to his situation to show the effect the sin could have on his life. This quote also shows the shift in his reaction. He now feels guilty for committing a sin and is panicking because of that.

            In order to highlight the importance of imagery Soto illustrates his actions with vivid detail. In lines 40 to 45 Soto vividly shows his 1st taste of sin. “The slop was sweet and gold-colored in the afternoon sun. I laid more pieces on my tongue, wet finger dripping pieces, until I was finished and felt like crying because it was the best thing I ever tasted.” Soto explains his situation so beautifully, he even wanted to cry, and this can show how much this sin impacted him. Saying he wanted to cry from the experience could be an example of his enjoyment or his guilt from the bitter sweetness of his actions.

            Most of Soto’s narrative is written in flashback in order to show his personal reflection. Throughout the story Soto uses mixtures of past and present tense to explain his personal realizations. For example, “I realized right there and then, in my sixth year, in my tiny body of two hundred bones and three or four sins, that the best things in life came stolen.” With this quote Soto reflects on his life experience. He had sinned and was so young. He realized how much his sin would affect his life.

            At the end of the narrative Soto begins to question himself. He asks questions about how real god and heaven is. I found that Soto’s experience was similar to that of Langston Hues. Hues had also committed a harsh sin at a young age causing him to question god. In the end both stories tied into Soto’s universal theme of how sin can cause someone to go through their own personal struggle.