Essay Undergraduate 633 words

Poverty and Literary Devices in Cervantes' "To My Brother"

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Abstract

This essay analyzes Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem "To My Brother" through the lens of its central theme: the debilitating effects of poverty on the impoverished. The paper examines three key literary devices Cervantes employs to develop this theme — metaphor, diction, and onomatopoeia — tracing how each contributes to a portrait of scarcity, hopelessness, and desperation. Close readings of specific passages illuminate how the speaker's language equates sunlight with currency, likens air to thought, and uses drug-associated vocabulary to underscore poverty's all-consuming grip on daily life.

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What makes this paper effective

Each body paragraph is organized around a single literary device, giving the argument a clear and consistent structure that is easy to follow.
The writer supports every claim with a direct quotation from the poem and immediately explains its significance, modeling the evidence-analysis pattern expected in literary essays.
The paper layers its analysis — for instance, noting that "diction" and "onomatopoeia" overlap — showing awareness of how literary devices interact rather than exist in isolation.

Key academic technique demonstrated

The paper demonstrates device-focused close reading: instead of summarizing the poem's narrative, the writer isolates specific figures of speech and traces how each one reinforces the central theme. The analysis of the word "drew" as banking language is a particularly strong example — connecting a single word choice to the poem's broader commentary on economic deprivation.

Structure breakdown

The essay follows a classic five-paragraph structure: an introduction that identifies theme and three devices, three body paragraphs each devoted to one device (metaphor of the sun, metaphor of air paired with diction, and onomatopoeia), and a brief conclusion that restates the thesis. This format makes the argument easy to follow and is well-suited to a focused literary analysis at the undergraduate level.

Introduction

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem "To My Brother" addresses the ills of poverty. The poem's theme explores the effects and perceptions of poverty on the impoverished, which largely takes the form of the poem's speaker. The author utilizes a number of specific literary devices to emphasize the pervasiveness of this theme and poverty's impact upon people; these devices include metaphor, diction, and onomatopoeia.

Metaphor of the Sun and Currency

The theme of poverty and its debilitating effects upon the impoverished is demonstrated in a number of ways in this poem by Cervantes. One of the most accessible is through her usage of metaphor. Poverty engenders the effect of dulling the lives and perceptions of people burdened by it. The author utilizes a metaphor about the weather to convey this fact. She writes, "Sun, scarcely a penny in that dreary setting" (Cervantes 520). The effects of poverty on the perceptions of the speaker are unmistakable in this quotation. The speaker likens the sun to a currency — a noteworthy metaphor because of the denomination selected, which is a penny, the least amount of money one can possess in the United States. By comparing the sun to a paltry sum of money, the speaker implies that there was a dearth of sun in her life, much like there was a dearth of money. The figurative significance of this passage is clear: the speaker had little money and experienced many dark, "dreary" days as a result.

Air as Thought: Metaphor and Diction Combined

Cervantes employs another metaphor to reflect the state of indigence the poem's speaker experienced. She writes, "We were poor. The air was a quiver of thoughts we drew from to poise, unsaid in the ineffable world we lived in" (Cervantes 520). The metaphor in this passage likens the air to thoughts, suggesting that the air — and the thoughts it represents — were virtually all the speaker had, given that she was considerably "poor." Additionally, an analysis of the author's diction in this passage underscores the poem's preoccupation with penury. The author describes the air and the thoughts it represents figuratively as something the speaker "drew from." This word choice is significant because it is regularly used in conjunction with banking and checking accounts, from which people make withdrawals. However, the narrator of the poem is drawing only air and the thoughts it represents, since poverty has rendered her bereft of bank accounts. Finally, the thoughts the air yields to the narrator remain "unsaid," emphasizing their immaterial, intangible quality — a stark contrast to the concrete, pragmatic nature of money.

1 Locked Section · 115 words remaining

Onomatopoeia and the Language of Poverty · 115 words

"Drug-related language illustrates poverty's toll"

Conclusion

Cervantes employs metaphor, diction, and onomatopoeia to underscore the effects of poverty. These effects are harmful and deeply undesirable, and they produce a debilitating impact on the poem's narrator. Together, these literary devices construct a vivid portrait of a life shaped and diminished by economic deprivation.

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Key Concepts in This Paper

Poverty Theme Literary Devices Metaphor Diction Onomatopoeia Close Reading Chicana Poetry Scarcity Figurative Language Speaker's Voice