In the short fictional story “Broken Chain” Gary Soto begins drawing in the reader’s attention by describing Alfonso pushing back his teeth because he felt inadequate about his appearance and was trying to fix his teeth on his own because his parents could not afford braces. I immediately felt compassion for this character.
I immediately wanted to know what was going to happen next, that’s when I learned he met a girl and needed to borrow his brothers bike.First the story begins with Alfonso’s older telling him about an older girl he met with braids and then Alfonso met a girl that had the same description they thought they both liked the same girl. On page 8 Alfonso’s older brother Ernie snarled at Alfonso and said, “ You better not touch her”! I figure he felt he met her first. Then he threw a box of Kleenex at him to express his anger. I knew his brother was not going to let him borrow his bike,Later Alfonso was working on his bike and matters got even worse, his own bike chain broke and he did not have a bike either. This made him even more upset because he was supposed to meet the first girl he ever talked to and things were falling apart.
He them begged his brother to lend him his bike so he can at least get there. “Come on man, let me use it”, Alfonso pleaded. Please Ernie I’ll do anything. He stated on page 10. This showed his desperation.
I think Ernie’s brother believed that his brother had one up on him because the young girl liked him and that shouldn’t happen especially by his little brother. I believe he thought if he would lend him his bike his little brother might succeed in getting the girl for himself. On page 8 the book says Ernie was secretly jealous that Alfonso might get a girlfriend for himself. At the end the brother comes around.In conclusion of the story the older brother realizes that the girl his brother Alfonso was seeing was Not the same one he had met.
He then decided to help his younger out and let him borrow his bike and stuck by his brother in the end as long as it was not the girl he liked. In all Gary Soto shows that things work out when it comes down to family.
