“Always Running” was a memoir written by Luis J. Rodriguez that explains an event that happened in his life that has impacted him. The story is about him and his brother living in a harsh area, and when they were heading towards the store, they had an unpleasant encounter with five mischievous teenagers who attacked them. However, even though this is a story, within the text, there is a significant amount of imagery, connotation, and syntax that was used to strengthen the writing. This also made the writing have more of voice and tone.
The imagery helped give more detail to the story. In result, the reader would be able to have a more visual perspective of the story, and is able to plant an image in their head of the events as they are reading. The first piece of imagery that was found was on page 35 which states “In those days, South Gate was an Anglo Neighborhood” (Rodriguez). This can give the reader some insight on what the neighborhood looks like because of the words used to describe it. Another piece of imagery that was found was on page 36 that reads “I remember the shrill maddening laughter of one of the kids on a bike, this laughing like a raven’s wail ...” (Rodriguez). The description of the laugh almost gives the reader an image of the specific sound that the laugh made.
Connotation was …show more content…
An example of that would be on page 36 “ ... into South Gate: all-white all-american.” (Rodriguez). This is stating that they define Americans as “all-white”. So, if you were colored, you weren’t considered completely American. Another use of syntax in the story is the quote “Swear-you got to swear-you’ll never tell anybody how I cried” (Rodriguez 36). This form of syntax helps put emphasis on the word “swear”. The brother of the main character desperately doesn’t want him to tell anyone how he cried. So he wants the main character to promise that he won’t say a