If this is from "'AGUA VIVA,' A SCULPTURE BY ALFRED GONZALEZ" then here's your answer. This 754 words.
Jack Agüeros has said that working people’s lives are “frequently heroic and have their drama, too.” In this story, Agüeros uses character development to show readers the humanity and drama in Fredo’s character and to dev
The narrator says that “distress can turn the dull to beauty.” That’s about to happen, but no sooner does Fredo decide to make the sculpture then some neighborhood boys start to torment “filthy Fredo” yet again. This happens all the time, and Fredo has never fought back. But this time he does.
From across the street a man hollered "Good for you Gonzalez. Welcome back to earth."
What the man across the street knew, and the boys had known, was that the man they all called “filthy Fredo” had never retaliated, had never even chased the taunting teenagers or the ya-ya-yaing younger boys. ... In fact before this moment he had never reacted at all, not for five and maybe seven years.
To anything.
Except iron and steel. (p. 78-79)
Fredo’s response changes him from a victim of violence to a person who finally fights back against victimization and injustice, a key theme in the story.
Agüeros uses characterization to bring Fredo to life. His emotional problems caused him to retreat into a safe world of his own creation consisting of “iron and steel” instead of human relationships.
Responding to the boys snaps Fredo back to reality and enables him to see himself as he really is.
In the mirror was the head and shoulders of a man who had not bathed, shaven, or shorn his hair for five or more years and who had not seen himself in that time either. (p. 80)
In the closing part of the story, Agüeros indirectly reveals Fredo’s heroism. He has endured the pain and suffering of his emotional problems to finally surface from those depths. And, despite his isolation and social rejection, Fredo has not lost his humanity. Given the chance to punish the boys for their injustice toward him, he does not seek vengeance.
“What do you want to do with this boy?”
Fredo wanted to say “nothing” but no sound came from him. ...
He had not spoken in over five years.
“Nothing? You wanna do nothing?”
Fredo shook his head yes. (p. 81)
His house had become the lair of the iron woodchuck, the hive of the iron bee, the storeroom of the iron squirrel, the complex of chambers of the iron ant.
From wall to wall, from floor to ceiling the mountain of metal was broken only by a thin corridor ... (p. 79)
Look at the metaphors comparing Fredo’s cluttered house, with its “mountain of metal” to the “lair of the iron woodchuck,” the “hive of the iron bee,” the “storeroom of the iron squirrel,” and the “chambers of the iron ant.” What do these images tell you about Fredo’s house and the way he lives?
Here the author introduces an important theme by showing readers that Fredo is a victim of his self-imposed isolation. For five years his only companions have been iron and steel objects, not people. His obsessive collecting has taken over his physical world, separating him from chronological time and human contact.
... in the beginning, the interest in collecting had been a pleasure and a hobby ... Now it was iron and steel wall to wall ... And parallel to this total displacement of his physical space iron had totally replaced his time or blocked or separated him from time. As if time in its rigid tick tock trajectory were thwarted by the crumpled metallic maze. (p. 79–80)
Agüeros finishes this paragraph by leaving us with a final image of Fredo’s isolation.
Or perhaps time entering the irrational dimension of this prodigious pile was bent the way sun rays refract through angled glass and then cannot escape the greenhouse. (p. 80)
Here, Agüeros compares time to the sun’s rays, and the “mountain of metal” to a greenhouse. Fredo’s world of iron has captured time and held it fast, just as a greenhouse captures the sun’s rays.
Only at the end of the story, when Fredo leaves his iron and steel home to confront the boy, does he finally connect with his neighbor—and reconnect with life. Think about the simile in this passage that describes this interaction and how Fredo breaks free from his self-imposed exile.
Fredo shook his head and made a sound like a hack saw on cast iron. It was “yes.” (p. 81)
