PJ#4

“ My Wicked Wicked ways” by Sandra Cisneros
This is my father.
See? He is young
He looks like Errol Flynn.
He is wearing a hat
That tips over one eye,
A suit that fits him good
And baggy pants.
He is also wearing
those awful shoes,
The two-toned ones
My mother hates.

Here is my mother.
She is not crying.
She cannot look no the lens
Because the sun is bright .
The woman.
The one my father knows,
Is not here.
She does not come till later.

My mother will bet very mad.
Her face will turn red
And she will throw one shoe.
After while everyone
Will forget it.
Years and years will pass.
My mother will stop mentioning it.

This is me she is carrying.
I am a baby.
She does not know
I will turn out bad.

Speaker: The speaker of this poem is a young boy or girl.
Occasion: The occasion is when the the speaker is talking about the people in a picture.
Audience: The audience of his poem is tended to be like older teenager and people that are adults also people who are Latino because I know that Sandra Cisneros wrote a lot for Latinos.
Purpose: The purpose of this poem is to use a specific moment to talk about her family more specifically her mother and father and herself.
Subject: The subject of this poem is her mother and a photograph.
Tone: the tone of this poem is also very calm and simple.
The author of this poem uses very simple diction as way to get her point understood.


I believe that Sandra Cisneros did a beautiful job of conveying her message through this poem. She talks about an old photograph of her and her family as well another women who might be her fathers mistress and talks about her mother and her mothers feelings. The title of the poem “ My Wicked Wicked Ways” lets the audience understand the meaning of the ending part where she say “ I will turn out bad”, her mother is aware of her husbands wicked ways but not of hers which makes this poem a little bit mysterious because we want to know her wicked ways. Through the poem the author is referring back to the photograph, in her first stanza she speaks about her father and how he looks and how he is dressed. In the second stanza is where the author hints at maybe her father cheated on her mother with another woman. In the third stanza the author speaks about how her mother will find out about her husbands affair and how she will get mad but over the years she will get over it eventually. Finally in the fourth stanza the author talks about her self as a baby and how her innocence does not let her mother see how bad will she will turn out in the future. The organized structure of this poem lets the audiece understand the poem better.