This is an interesting comparison with the House on Mango Street snippet on the previous page.
Both are first person narratives about longing, from the point of view of teenage girls, but told from different distances:
- In Mango Street, Cisneros writes from inside Esperanza's body.
- In Furia, Méndez writes from a greater distance. While we hear Camila's thoughts, they are more summary-level, and we only touch on a feeling at the end of the snippet, with the metaphor of the forbidden beer on a hot summer night.
The effect is as if Camila is describing a memory, and that's where the sense of distance comes from: she can remember her thoughts, summarise the actions, and capture a couple of vivid feelings, but she also recognises that moment as being a kind of bubble, with troubles lurking beyond it.
So we understand what Camila is feeling, but we feel it from a distance and not as strongly.
Does the snippet use contrast?
Yes:
- The natural contrast of winning vs losing.
- The sweetness of the victory vs the sadness of her mother not being there.
- Being a champion for one group of people vs being ignored by another (her parents).
- Having a peak moment on the field vs dull moments in ordinary life.
So Camila herself has contrasting emotions.
But do we have emotions beyond Camila's?
Not really.
Camila tells us about her mixed feelings, and we empathise, but there's nothing in the snippet designed to make us feel anything beyond that.
