“I thought
the Joshua tree was ugly. It looked scraggly and freakish, permanently stuck
in its twisted, tortured position, and it made you think of how sometimes
adults tell you not to make weird faces because your features could freeze.
Mom, however, thought it was one of the most beautiful trees she had ever seen.
She told us she had to paint it.” (35)
A Joshua tree is an ugly tree that is made to survive in the harsh
conditions of the desert. In this passage Jeannette discusses how ugly this
tree was but how her mom saw beauty within that tree. The Joshua tree is a
symbol for Jeannette’s family. Her family is “scraggly”, and permanently in a
tough position from moving around and having parents that don’t properly take
care of the kids. They may not be in great shape but it represents how they are
made to survive. Throughout all the things they’ve been through they’re still
alive.
In the book Jeannette said “all of us kids were
scrawny and sunburned and wore faded shorts and raggedy shirts and shoes with
holes or no shoes at all” (58-59). Here
Jeannette describes herself along with the kids of her neighborhood as “scrawny”.
She also describes how they look raggedy or not well kept. This is similar to
how she describe the tree as “scraggly and freakish” in the passage on page 35.
From this you could infer that in this passage Jeanette is comparing her family
to a tree.
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