OPPapers.com Essay Index >> Book Reports >> 24 Points On Caramelo By Sandra Cisneros
We have many free term papers and essays on 24 Points On Caramelo By Sandra Cisneros. We also have a wide variety of research papers and book reports available to you for free. You can browse our collection of term papers or use our search engine.
24 points on Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros. Sandra Cisneros, the award-winning
author of the highly acclaimed The House on Mango Street ...
Submitted by karla87 on January 7, 2007
Category: Book Reports
Words: 2145 | Pages: 9
Views: 541
Popularity Rank: 14,869
Average Member Grade: N/A (Add a Comment / Grade this Paper)
Sandra Cisneros, the award-winning author of the highly acclaimed The House on Mango Street and several other esteemed works, has produced a stunning new novel, Caramelo. This long-anticipated novel is an all-embracing epic of family history, Mexican history, the immigrant experience, and a young Mexican-American woman's road to adulthood. We hope the following introduction, discussion questions, suggested reading list, and author biography enhance your group's reading of this captivating and masterful literary work.
1. From the novel's opening epigraph—“Tell me a story, even it it's a lie”—to its end, the relationship between truth, lies, history, and storytelling is an important theme. Posits Celaya, “Did I dream it or did someone tell me the story? I can't remember where the truth ends and the talk begins” [p. 20]. And while she is assuring us, “I wish I could tell you about this episode in my family's history, but nobody talks about it, and I refuse to invent what I don't know” [p. 134], she also acknowledges, “The same story becomes a different story depending on who is telling it” [p. 156]. For example, clearly the Awful Grandmother is sugarcoating the truth about her marriage to Narciso [p. 171]. What other aspects of the novel are evidently “untruthful”? Is the reader to believe that Caramelo is just a “different kind of lie” [p. 246]?
2. Celaya says,“I'm not ashamed of my past. It's the story of my life I'm sorry about” [p. 399]. What's the difference?
3. The narrative transitions from one storyteller's point of view, or voice, to another's in different parts of the story. For example, in Chapter 22, Celaya as the storyteller engages in a dialogue with the Awful Grandmother about the way the grandmother's story is being told [pp. 91–123]. Then, in Chapter 29, Narciso begins to tell his own story of when he lived in Chicago [p. 137]. And later, in Chapters 37–45, the dialogue between Celaya and the Awful Grandmother...
You must Login to view the entire paper.
If you are not a member yet, Sign Up for free!