In a well-organized, multi-paragraph, formal essay, analyze how Cisneros uses a stylistic device to create her tone in “Geraldo No Last Name.”
The scene of an innocent bystander being interrogated after witnessing a death is common in the world of movies and is present in “Geraldo No Last Name.” Written by Sandra Cisneros, this is the story of a pleasant evening going bad; a girl named Marin is being questioned for information on a man named Geraldo because she is the last person he met before his mysterious death. Cisneros writes “Geraldo” with an informal, colloquial, everyday-talk-with-your-friends choice of wording and short and choppy sentence structure to form an underlying tone of apathy toward Geraldo’s demise before suddenly shifting to a remorseful tone.
In this story, Cisneros writes her sentences as if she were talking to her husband about the day’s events. When explaining what Marin is saying to the police, the author depicts the event as, “That’s what she said again and again. Once to the hospital people and twice to the police. No address. No Name. Nothing in his pockets. Ain’t it a shame” (560). This use of diction reveals a confused tone on behalf of the speaker that paves the way to the grand tone before the ending; using the word “ain’t” shows signs of the author’s lack of interest or care towards the mishap, in the way of almost saying, “Ain’t it a shame it happened… so what else is new?”
After the initial description of Marin’s part in the story is finished, the writer starts to ask questions in a sarcastic manner, implying the lack of the significance of Geraldo in Marin’s eyes. To get this through, Cisneros answers her own question of “…What difference does it make?” (560) with “He wasn’t her boyfriend or anything like that. Just another brazer who didn’t speak English. Just another wetback” (561). With the words of “wasn’t…that”, the writer is going over within her thoughts of why anyone needs to care about a nobody (exemplified by the negative terminology of “brazer” and “wetback”) who is simply working to feed his family. The author continues by questioning why does knowing “she met him at a dance” and that Geraldo was wearing a “shiny shirt and green pants” (561) matter to anybody? This shows her icy, non-caring tone towards the subject.
Yet at the very end, after verbally undermining the importance of Geraldo, the writer appears to have a change of heart; Cisneros writes that Geraldo lived in another country, and that when his far away family remembers him, they will only give the man a minute of their thinking, reflect on these thoughts, and move on. But Cisneros’ choice of wording in the closing statement of the story is where the tone shift is evident. She writes, “Geraldo – he went north… we never heard from him again” (561). The main word to focus on is “we,” signifying that Geraldo was at least an acquaintance to the speaker and that the speaker is expressing her remorse for the loss of this person as if she was reading a eulogy.
Cisneros uses a negative diction in her story to initially reveal her tone by using slang, then by completely changing her tone in the sentences. The attitude at the end of the story ironically ends up as a depressing, sad tone toward the tragedy befalling the man with no last name, Geraldo. With his fictional death, one must look upon their lives and realize that their loved ones will not be around forever, so try to keep relations with relatives because when they die, there is no way to bring them back.