Style Analysis of Jimmy Santiago Baca's

The organization of the poem reflects human emotion in the way that it is structured like a sympathetic roller coaster ride. The poem begins with Baca driving home past a hitchhiker. A passive introduction, stating an everyday reality in life. Driving home past a hitchhiker is something that is normal and an everyday sight in today’s society, and so Baca displays no emotional connection with the initial sight. He does, though, in lines 4 and 5 when he begins to develop pity for the hitchhiker, personifying simple aspects of his appearance. An initial rise of emotion slopes as the hitchhiker attempts his will for a ride home in lines 6 and 7. The slope increases as Baca digs deeper into the shoes of the mysterious hitchhiker as he drives by in lines 11 through 14. Baca notices the spraying lights that outline the figur

e of the hitchhiker in line 15, informing the reader of the increase in concern for the forsaken individual. Line 16 concludes with a dash that is picked up in the indentations of lines 17, 19, and 21; the rise and fall of the ride. This is the drop from the emotional high point, where Baca sympathizes with the hitchhiker with a passion that envelopes not only Baca, the author himself, but the reader as well. The separation in structure of lines 17, 19, and 21 serve as the subtle, but climatic change in that Baca feels for the hitchhiker. He begins to drown himself in the history of the hitchhiker, analyzing every detail that could serve, or support his compassion. Line 23 concludes the high point of the ride, but not without a final address to accent the maudlin nature of the poem. The poem resumes classic free verse structure formally introduced as the opening. But instead of being slightly sentimental, the last of the poem instills a mental, and yet very emotional, image that grasps the reader’s innermost feelings of guilt. The last six lines of the poem summarize the personal feelings Baca felt for a man that he saw, contemplated, and ultimately came to love.

universally, but especially in Spanish, of the struggles in aspired

America, the land of hope, and hopeless.

The poignant figurative language of the poem compliments the theme of loneliness in the poem. Baca describes the poor individual as “ he sits on a lifetime packed into his suitcase.” The hitchhiker, according to Baca sits on his life, which sadly consists of all that can fit

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