The sentence structure in "Oranges" reflects the youth of the speaker in its focus on the speaker himself, which is a common occurrence among the young. Although the speaker's narrative is about his first walk with a girl, he begins seven sentences in the poem with the word "I," and the very final line also begins with "I." The experience is as much about himself as it is about the girl; he seeks to bring meaning to this moment when he is able to purchase a candy for a girl he admires.
The sentence length used in the poem reflects a feeling of being rushed to deliver all the details:
I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore.
In this example, the reader can sense the...
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urgency he feels to explain the intoxicating trip en route to the drugstore. He begins his sentence with a simple declarative clause, focusing again on himself, and then notes how "his girl" follows behind, noting all the little details along the way. This one sentence stretches on breathlessly, mirroring the breathless adoration of the young speaker.
The word choice feels familiar and simple. There are no complex ideas, and he doesn't even touch on love. He notices the details that a young person would, such as the "candies / Tiered like bleachers," and says, "I took my girl's hand / In mine for two blocks." The small details here, from considering her "his" girl to noting the exact number of blocks through which they hold hands, conveys that he isn't very mature in areas of romance, and this is a simple and innocent walk.
How do sentence structure and word choice show the speaker's maturity in "Oranges"?
The sentence structure, sentence length, and word choice in Gary Soto's "Oranges" all combine to demonstrate that the speaker is a mature adult, looking back on an episode from his youth.
Sophisticated rhetorical structures such as the participial phrase that introduces the second sentence ("Frost cracking beneath my breath") and the description of the girl's "face bright with rouge" demonstrate a command of complex syntax. A younger speaker, for instance, might have turned these compact phrases into complete clauses ("the frost was cracking beneath my breath"). The use of a word such as "rouge," as opposed to "red" or "makeup," also characterizes the speaker as an adult. Similarly, the description "tiered as bleachers" is one that a youthful writer would almost certainly not reach for.
Additionally, the structure and lengths of the sentences mark the speaker as an adult. They are typically long and full-breathed. Most are either compound or complex, bringing multiple clauses together to develop complex ideas, in the manner of a more sophisticated speaker looking back. If the speaker described these events at the age they actually happened (twelve), the poem would certainly look and feel very different.