Luis Alberto Urrea’s use of description in Across the Wire is so intense and
profound that I can clearly see the characters and setting in my mind. Certain
parts make me physically lurch, and my stomach tenses up just recalling them.
"Pacha had startling eyes… her eyes would have
seemed like a movie star's." This precise detail stands out to me
because this woman is such a contradiction. She is homeless and destitute, yet
too proud to scramble for the food delivered by Christian missionaries, instead
waiting for it to be brought to her. She is filthy, yet her eyes are those of a
beautiful and glamorous movie star.
"And she had been leaning against it to go; bloody
ropes and spatters of feces were all over the wall." Through this effective
use of metaphor, I know how sick Mrs. Serrano must have been to have stool that
would be characterized as "bloody ropes". This also gives some insight
into the “house” and the squalor in which the Serrano’s lived. Not only is
there no bathroom, but the family’s waste isn’t even contained in a separate space.
"I
was told that if I was really interested in the shooting, one of the men would
sell me the shotgun. It was going for forty dollars." After Jesusita
and her husband are viciously and deliberately executed, the commentary is cold
and unsentimental, confined only to the measly cost of the gun instead of displaying
any grief or desire for justice.Luis Alberto Urrea's description is concise, but the adjectives and metaphors he uses are cutting and haunting. He describes the garbage dump and its cast of characters vividly, drawing a detailed portrait that is so clear that I'm tempted to look away so that I don't have to see the horrors that compose it.
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