Gary Soto in his poem “Saturday at the Canal” by the means of contrasting imagery describes freedom and life and clearly explains the fact that in order to be free in life, you have to break a few rules in life. Though Soto is aware about the complex reality, but still he nurtures a dream, a dream to live in San Francisco when he says “San Francisco was just a postcard, on a bedroom wall” he actually expresses his deep desire to stay there because as he says San Francisco is a place where “people… knew more than three chords/ on a guitar”.
San Francisco refers to the deepest desires of the poet, a dream that he is determined to attain as soon as possible. The poem is actually about two friends who want to taste freedom by leaving the town, by escaping from the place they live in. Kids are merely judged on the basis of marks they obtain in the school, the marks which are meaningless in the long run.
With the use of vivid imagery and metaphor, the poet turns the poem into a beautiful landscape. This voice of discontent expresses a deeply honest theme where the poet like any other teenager expresses the desire to try something new, gain freedom. Vivid words and imagery which constantly engage our senses have been constantly used in the poem. Soto moves ahead from the carefree feeling of today to dreams of the future using chronological syntax, climatic diction and dry imagery demonstrating the significance of living life free from any worries and “going with the flow” just like the canal does.
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Wasting even a single moment being tensed is useless because it is completely in our hands to feel good about the present and also the future and thus change the circumstances. The poet contrasts the wish fullness in the thoughts of a teenager with the present reality of the world in order to stress the significance of dreams in any individual’s life especially the teenagers.
Soto and his friend are unsatisfied with their present life’s which truly reflects the reality of the teenagers today. This reality has in fact a positive impact on the teenagers; it is only because of the uncertainties that the teenagers face that they understand the significance of dreaming big in life, as a result of which they achieve much more than they have ever imagined. Regardless of their caste and status in the society, people dream of attaining the unattainable and attaining this unattainable is the driving force of all the teenagers who dream of a better tomorrow.
All the teenagers today dream of breaking the usual mold and desire to do something which is generally not accepted in their hometowns. The poem is concluded with a metaphor “Our eyes followed the water, White tipped but dark underneath racing out of towns”. Like the water underneath the towns, the desires of the teenagers also lie underneath hidden in their souls.