Dead End

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Dead End

The story "Dead End" by Rudolfo Anaya, is about a girl who wanted to belong to her friends, but she concealed the promise she made with her mother on her deathbed. Maria is a twelfth grader in high school who wanted to fit in with her friends. Along with that, she liked a boy named Frankie Galvan. Maria also took care of her brother and sister because she wanted to keep her house together. Maria did not have time for her friends, so she only saw them in school. Maria had responsibilities to handle with school and her home. The promise to her mother was to finish high school and college, and earn her education.

Maria has a problem with what she wants. She wants to belong to her friends, but she gave her promise to her mother on her deathbed. She wanted her friends to accept her. The text states: "Maria wished she could belong to their gang. She wished she could be free and easy like them, but ever since she could remember, her mother had impressed on her the importance of an education." She also liked Frankie Galvan and wanted to be with him, since that was her high school crush. On the contrary, her mother told her the story "Hispanic Legend of La Llorona." This legend is about a female who gave her dreams away for a guy, and her life turned out bad. She threw her kids away and then realize the mistake she has made and tried to get them back, but it was too late. The point of this legend being brought up by Maria's mother was to show Maria that any man would capable of such a thing, in particular, Frankie.

In the story, the author expresses how "lonely" Frankie is. The interpretation of so is because his girlfriend he fell in love with died from a car crash a year before the setting of this story. Frankie has been like that since, and this is what brought Maria closer to him. The word "lonely" applies to Maria as well. That is so because Maria is used to taking care of the house, that she is not around people her age or people she wanted to be around. She had no one to really hang out with since her responsibilities came first. the text states: "As Maria walked away, she secretly wished she could be like those girls." the text states how Maria wanted to be around people she wanted to be with.

Empathy is very important in this story because both Maria and Frankie respect each other and their feelings enough to not cross their boundaries. Frankie lost his girlfriend, and yet Maria was still nice and sympathetic when he was trying to influence her to a negative side. Maria did not want to have any sex before marriage and until after she graduated from high school, and Frankie respected it after hearing the La Llorona story and what perspective she has from it. Envy is also applied to this story. this is so because both Maria and Frankie were both envied. Girls envied Maria because they knew Frankie liked her, but they did not see why due to the way she was. they would make that obvious with their remarks. the text states: ""