Comparison/Contrast Essay

Comparing “Magic” By Elizabeth Acevedo and “Why I hate Raisins” By Natalie Diaz”

In "Magic," Elizabeth Acevedo portrays the message that People can and feel emotions, like love,

through food, and that social class has a heavy influence on the thoughts and actions of everyone. First,

the author conveys this through the use of the simile "Like an island hammock" (Acevedo 2). The simile

shows how the memory of Abuela's time in Puerto Rico suddenly reappeared in her head. The simile as

well as the rest of the text shows how love is taken from both the cooking process and the taste of the

food itself. After this simile, the author begins to tell more of her cooking story as opposed to her

Abuela's. This simile marks both the end of the author's story about her Abuela's and the beginning of her

cooking story. First, the author conveys this through the use of the simile "Like an island hammock"

(Acevedo 2). The simile shows how the memory of her Abuela's time in Puerto Rico suddenly reappeared

in her head. The simile as well as the rest of the text shows how love is taken from both the cooking

process and the taste of the food itself. After this simile, the author begins to tell more of her cooking

story as opposed to her Abuela's. This simile marks both the end of the author's story about her Abuela's

and the beginning of her cooking story. The author uses both similes and certain words to relay a positive

tone of the story.

In "Why I hate Raisins," Natalie Diaz portrays the message that People can and feel emotions,

like hate, through food, and that social class has a heavy influence on the thoughts and actions of

everyone. The author's descriptions of the raisins through similes help define what lifestyle she lived in to

eat so many raisins. The simile on the 6th line, "USDA stamped like a fist on the side" (Diaz), shows how

her family was not in a comfortable situation financially. They were getting free food from the USDA and

were living on very little of it. Also, the author's choice of words, more specifically the connotation of the

words, shows her hatred toward raisins. It also shows her jealousy of kids, mainly white kids, who are in a

better living and financial situation than her. While the author chooses to have speech italicized, the

impact of the words in the quote "At least the white kids get a sandwich" (Diaz) have connotations of
jealousy. Paired with the quote "You want to be a white kid? Well too bad cause you're my kid" (Diaz),

both show that the author and her mother are not happy with their financial situation. After these quotes,

the author reveals she ate all the food they had, so her mother didn't eat anything. This as well as the way

the raisins made her stomach feel, makes the author show hate toward raisins. The author uses both

similes and certain words to relay a negative tone of the story.

Both "Magic" and "Why I hate raisins" are centered around food, and are also written in a similar

perspective. The authors of both stories reflect on a time when they were a child and they tell their story

in the first person. While both pieces of text show a story revolving around food, they show completely

different foods, as well as opposite feelings towards said foods. In "Magic", the author relates the accident

with her and her Abuela as a moment where she began to learn how to cook, and how the food made her

Abuela so happy she cried tears of joy. The thought of food created memories of good times for the author

as well as jogging her grandmother's memories of her life before. In "Why I Hate Raisins”, the author

writes the story of when she ate all the food her and her mother had left, and then she had an upset

stomach. This story is written in a more melancholic and sad tone compared to the happy tone of

"Magic". However, in both texts, the authors make the choice to use both similes and word choices to

impact the tone. In the first story, the author uses the simile "Like an island hammock" (Acevedo 2) to

show how her grandmother describes the memory of her life in Puerto Rico reaching out to her. In the

second story, the author uses the phrase “USDA stamped like a fist on the side" (Diaz) to show how the

food they get is for free from the U.S government and helps reveal their economic state. The first story

contains lots of informal words and slang, the second story contains mostly correct grammar and spelling.

Both these choices for the text help separate each story from the other by its tone. Though they may have

the same central idea, the two pieces of text are different because of their tone, which is made by the word

choices the authors make.