Literary Elements/Figurative Language

Metaphor: In Rain of Gold, the author uses lots of metaphors. He says, "Then the sun, the right eye of God, was going down behind the towering cliffs." He often relates major objects on earth or in the universe to God. He does this because Lupe's Family is very religious. He wants to express this as often as he can, while being coy about it. He does this to the point at which the reader doesn't notice the subtleness of it. Some figurative language the author uses is when he says "Her mother was sitting at the end of the bed, surrounded by long spears of silvery moonlight coming through the cracks in their lean-to."  The long spears is the figurative part. Its a good simple way of expressing moonlight through a crack, though they are obviously not spears. These simple was of expressing things are also a good way to relate to Lupe. At 6 years old, it is understandable how she would think of the world this way. The figurative language and metaphors used by Villasenor are very well used. He really captures the idea of his characters and their setting.

Week Three

Welcome to Week Three of the Discussion! This weeks discussion will run from Monday, March 9 to Sunday, March 15.

This week's discussion will be on figurative language and literary elements in your book. Please find an example of these in your book and POST a 10-sentence comment on it. Don't forget to comment on 5 other posts on this blog. You have all week to complete this assignment, please don't wait until the last minute.

Setting

In Rain of Gold, the setting is a major part of the story. Lupe's family lives in La Luvia de Oro in Mexico. She lives next to an american-owned gold mine, up high on the mountains. She is very poor, and lives among other families in poverty. The influence of the Americans on the villagers of La Luvia de Oro is suppressive. The tension between the two ethnic groups makes for common conflict. This is found for adults and children. It is common to have mexican cavalry sweep through the town shooting randomly as part of the revolution. For Lupe, she has conflicts in school with some american students. The gold mine in La Luvia de Oro is another reason for conflict. The greedy americans underpay the mexican workers and the land owners do not distribute their land fairly or evenly. 

Setting

Juans family is on the run, trying to find a place with adaquite food and shelter in the United States, but that is hard to come by in the unforgiving Mexican desert. Luisa's husband has described the lush and rich valley of the Rio Grande to Juan's family and they get on a train north. Only when they arrive there is nothing but lizards and snakes. But when Juan wakes up his mother she can only see the beautiful. There is nowhere to the family to stay, until another family lets them stay in the brush by their fence. Juan and Epitacio locate the Rio Grande on the other side of the poor town they are staying in. They didn't realize that it was the grand river at first because it was so muddy. Epitacio found that the family could not cross with out paying a small fortune. They could not afford to go the United States and they couldnt go home to their lush mountain valley either.

SETTING!!

The setting of the book takes place in two parts of Mexico. Lupe lives in La Lluvia de Oro, in the high mountains in northwest Mexico. In this part of Mexico there is a gold mine so they call it Rain of Gold in English. Lupe's part of the story takes place in a village like town with a lot of poor peasants living in houses of stone and lean-tos out of sticks and mud. The reason why most of the people live in poverty is because of the unequal shares of land which is owned by the haciendos. The horrendous conditions are also from the reign of Porfiro Diaz who wanted to be like the the Europeans and forget the old traditions of the Indians and creoles. This is during the Revolution of Mexico. The second part of the story takes place with Juan Salvador is just outside of Leon. Juan's family is on the run trying to get food from place to place. Juan and his family wanted to get across the Rio Grande but the town that there grandfather owned got destroyed.

Character

So far Lupe is the main character it Rain of Gold. She has a very strong faith and loves her mother very much. The reader gets the sense that she try's to be mature, but really she is immature. She also is very innocent and she is always trying to do the right thing and please God. Lupe treats everyday as a miracle and as a new opportunity to please God. For a six year old, Lupe is a hopeless romantic. She fell in love with one of the Colonels at the gold mine in her village. When he goes on long trips she waits hopelessly for him to return to her, although he already has a wife. But when he dies in battle, she builds him an altar. She finds a fawn in the clearing and takes him in, because she is a loving little girl.  

THe main character in Rain of Gold is Lupe. Lupe is very shy especially when people talk about her beauty. Usually, when a stranger comes and says she is beautiful, she will just stay quiet and look away. One part of Lupe I find very interesting is her outlook on the world. For a 6 year old, it is pretty advanced. Lupe sees many of the main parts of her life as miracles. For example, when she wakes up, she calls it the first miracle of the day. Spending the morning with her family is another miracle. When the sun goes down, she calls it the final miracle of the day. I think that these ideas where told to her by her mother, Dona Guadalupe. Its the type of belief that mothers commonly tell their children, along with seeing every moment as an opportunity to do good deeds and achieve great things.