Question

Read the excerpts from “Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry” and “Speaking Arabic.” My friend had concluded that if he took his language and culture out of his poetry, he stood a better chance of receiving a fellowship. He took out his native language, the poetic patois of our reality, the rich mixture of Spanish, English, pachuco and street talk which we know so well. In other words, he took the tortillas out of his poetry, which is to say he took the soul out of his poetry. At a neighborhood fair in Texas, somewhere between the German Oom-pah Sausage Stand and the Mexican Gorditas booth, I overheard a young man say to his friend, “I wish I had a heritage. Sometimes I feel—so lonely for one.” And the tall American trees were dangling their thick branches right down over his head. Which best states how the structures of both excerpts engage the reader? They employ statistical evidence. They employ figurative language. They employ supporting quotes. They employ an authoritative tone.

Answer 1

The correct answer is: Each author uses figurative language.

Indeed, the first author uses figurative language (he took the tortillas out of his poetry) which is followed by a very explicit explanation, that the character in question “took the soul out of his poetry”. This use of figurative language is effective in eliciting an emotional response from the reader by the pathos of the premise, that removing foreign, Mexican Spanish words from the character’s poetry also removes its soul, in other words, its identity.

The second author also uses figurative language and there is a hint of irony in the description that immediately follows the dialogue. The immediate landscape is used to show the “heritage-deprived” person that he actually does have a heritage. In other words, he does not need to be a hyphenated American in order to have a heritage because it is right there “dangling over his head”.

The symbolism of the “tall American tree” is used to show how the speaker of these lines that America has its own heritage, which lies in its history, its melting pot and its territory and he cannot even see it.