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Erron Jones

Professor Brown

ENG 0240 – The Short Story

20 November 2023

Dagoberto Gilb: The Common Working-Class Experience

As one of many authors found to be a part of the post-modern style of writing in short

stories, Dagoberto Gilb has quite the unique style depicted in many of the stories he has written.

While his work is, on the broader scale, more focused on life from the perspective of someone

labeled “Chicano,” he more specifically focuses on the life events that happen to these kinds of

characters. Normally, the narrators are depicted as working class Mexican-American characters,

who are just living their lives in or around the Los Angeles or El Paso area. However, Gilb

instead chooses to illustrate his narrators as well as other characters through the narrators’

constant streams of thought and uses this as a story-telling type of device. Rather than describing

the character and what they look like, the character instead thinks and talks for themselves,

resulting in characterization more from the way they talk. Based off how the characters perceive

themselves and the people around them, Gilb shows us as readers what we know the narrator to

be like, for the most part. Uncle Rock, Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch, and Los Gallos all have a

similar writing style, but all of the characters are still described and portrayed in different ways,

showing the many different perspectives within Latino, Chicano, and Mexican-American people.

Gilb uses similar words and sentence structure throughout most of his works, but not without

some differences that change the narrator’s characterization and tone of the story, as well as the

way that Dagoberto wanted his narrator’s thoughts to be interpretated. Even though Gilb’s
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narrators are all unique in their own ways, they share the common trait of coming from a

working-class family. He uses this technique of stream of consciousness narration to write about

the subject of working-class people, and how their lives and experiences are connected through

the kind of life that they all share, despite their feelings towards certain parts of that life that

those individuals have experienced.

In Uncle Rock, the narrator is a young boy of a single mother who has a different lover

very frequently. Although the narrator is very young, the way that Gilb structures the boy’s

sentences make it seem that he is extremely mature for his age, or at least understanding the real

world. He recognizes when his mother, or he, is being taken advantage of, and behaves in certain

ways towards actions portrayed by other characters. The stream of consciousness style of writing

that Gilb uses in Uncle Rock supports the argument that the narrator’s life is a life shared among

the American Southwest, as the boy, without a father figure, must figure out and interpret the real

world solely based on his perception, which we as readers actively see in Gilb’s stream of

consciousness writing. Many working-class families in the American Southwest and all over,

including Gilb’s family, grew up with the father either being away for work, or being gone

entirely, making this narrator’s realization of the real world an experience that many people in

working class families share the same kind of experience, and in turn, the same kind of life. The

narrator’s stream of consciousness is very similar in word choice and sentence structure to Los

Gallos, where the narrator will state something that you would expect the narrator to not know,

only to explain how they know this. In return, the characters, though they are portrayed as

younger narrators, seem more mature than you would expect a person their age to be. In Why

Kiki Was Late for Lunch, we don’t really see the exact opposite, but rather a different type of

stream of consciousness that is evident in both Uncle Rock and Los Gallos, in which the stream
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of consciousness that the narrator if putting forth is not held back in any way. The narrator is

instead spewing the words that come to mind before thinking, unlike how a narrator would tell a

story, or planned-out thought.

The narrator in Los Gallos, much like the narrator in Uncle Rock, is a younger narrator,

though the exact age is still unknown. Unlike the stream of consciousness narration found in

Uncle Rock, the narrator does not have any sudden realizations, but rather has a sentimental and

spiritual connection with the sport of cockfighting. This narrator’s stream of consciousness is

more thought out, and at times the narrator makes the reader forget that the story is being told in

first person. One could argue that the point of view partially changes throughout the story,

entirely based on how the narrator is thinking and retelling events from their life. . The narration

in this story is even further from that found in Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch, and it feels as if the

reader is listening to a wise man talk about his days of playing a sport long ago. The style of

writing that Gilb utilizes within the narrator in Los Gallos supports the argument that working-

class families all share the same kind of life, as the narrator, specifically in the second to last

paragraph of the story, starts relating the fighting that he sees in cockfights to the fight that you

see in many individuals within working-class families. The narrator mentions how the owners of

the roosters would often pour all the money made from the sport back into the animals, making a

monetary desire of the sport utterly futile. Nonetheless, many people, specifically from working-

class families, took part in the sport to keep their connection between the Old West and the

present. Because of this, the narrator’s stream of consciousness begins to mix the people and the

roosters in the story. The narrator is so sure and so positive in their way of thinking that it

becomes impossible to argue against cockfighting being good or bad, as taking a stance against

the narrator would admit that you cannot relate to or understand the culture and way of life that
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this narrator understands. To take it away or look down upon it would be to do the very same for

the narrator, and all people who share that same experience and kind of life.

In Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch, we see a dramatically different kind of stream of

consciousness short story, where the narrator is spewing every word that comes to thought. There

is no correct punctuation, and there are many repeated words throughout the entire story.

Reading the narration out loud forces you to have to breathe in between sentences, a detail that

Gilb meant to include. The narration is told at the very present, and every object, color, direction,

light, and sound is said, but not described. On the same hand, emotions and feelings are also

spewed, but not explained. This inherent detail forces the reader to wonder and think about what

could possibly cause the emotions mentioned, much like how the narrator described the culture

in Los Gallos to be misinterpreted by people who have not lived that life. In both Los Gallos and

Uncle Rock, the narrators are slowed down, and describe many of the things that they mention in

at least some detail. However, the lack of detail and emotion in Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch

makes readers perceive the story in different ways and tones, which is also how the narration of

this story supports the agreement of working-class individuals sharing experiences and the kind

of life they share. The lack of emotion and punctuation within the story can lead the reader to

think that the narrator was angry, happy, sad, anxious, or any other feeling that one might get

from the almost incoherent word choice. The narrator is telling a story of a not-quite-so-out-of-

this-world experience of picking up a stranger and driving them someplace, one that a good

amount people have experienced before, but void of any emotions. This story depicts an

experience that many people share and leaves the narrator’s emotions pointless. Whether

someone who has shared the experience before had a good experience or bad one, they know

what the experience involves. Thus, the feelings towards picking up a stranger do not matter, as
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the experience itself is what Gilb is after, just as he is with the experience of life within the

working class. Many people go through the same things in life, and those people will have

different outcomes and feelings towards those parts of their lives. However, it is still something

that those people can share, just as the working-class people in Los Gallos share the experience

of the sport of cockfighting.

In these three stories, Uncle Rock, Los Gallos, and Why Kiki Was Late for Lunch,

although they all have some unique and large differences, we see narrators that all tell the story

through their stream of consciousness. They choose to tell the story as it happens, and rather than

talking and telling a story with you, they talk and tell a story to you. By using a narrator who tells

the story from their consciousness, Gilb makes the stories more relatable and more “normal,” as

the three stories mentioned involve experiences that many working-class people, and people that

Gilb knew throughout his life as an individual in a Chicano family, have been able to be a part

of. The emotions and feelings of the kind of life they live may not be shared, but the experiences

are the things that tie them together. The life of a working-class individual might not be pretty,

but just like the sport of cockfighting, none of it is fabricated, and none of it is “unnatural” (Los

Gallos, paragraph 23). Gilb uses these narrators to not only share what it is like to be an

individual in the working class, but one that is also part of this culture that many people are not a

part of, or do not understand. Gilb celebrates the culture of this group of people that he considers

himself a part of, and shows readers the kinds of lives that adults, children, and other individuals

would live within the working class, specifically in the southwest of the United States.