53 pages • 1 hour read
Patricia BeattyLupita Manana
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1981A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
The Parable
Lupita Mañana is a parable. Parables are among the most unique of stories because their purpose is to question or attack commonly held beliefs and ideas. Beatty uses Lupita Mañana to attack the literary myth that one can overcome life’s greatest obstacles by oneself through personal resilience, hard work, and a little bit of luck.
To grasp what Beatty is doing, it helps to know that she is writing a response to a young adult novel from the early 20th century: Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter. Porter’s book, also named for the main character, follows a very similar storyline: A young orphan girl moves to a distant place to live with her mother’s sister who does not want her but feels obligated to care for her. The girl’s presence ultimately changes the lives of everyone in the town. Taking a step farther back, Pollyanna itself is really a response to a series of books for young boys written around the end of the 19th century by Horatio Alger. The plot to every one of Alger’s books was the same: An orphaned boy of high moral character did a good deed for a wealthy family and was rewarded with a new, privileged life. For boys, the rewards had to do with good jobs, nice houses, and loving wives. In Porter’s book, written for girls, Pollyanna develops the ability to change people’s hearts and make them glad. Like the Alger books, Porter and others wrote many Pollyanna sequels to carry the message that, if you really try, you can always show people how to be glad.
Beatty takes the Pollyanna idea and turns it on its head. She wants to honestly examine the question of whether a person can simply overcome the most brutal hardships one can face with a positive attitude. One other thing about parables is that they are incomplete; the reader must decide how they end.
Blending of Languages
Beatty blends the English and Spanish languages throughout the novel. In some cases, this is necessary because there is no adequate single English word to convey the meaning of a Spanish word. For instance, Beatty uses the word pocho, for which there is no exact English translation, throughout the second half of the book to convey a specific set of meanings and emphases. Unlike some novels set among non-English speaking populations, all the dialogue in Lupita Mañana is understood to be spoken in Spanish. Thus, even when the American youngsters in a truck are chasing Salvador and Lupita and yelling at them, they are doing so in Spanish. By blending Spanish words into the English story, Beatty shares a richness of meaning and nuance about the language that exact translations cannot achieve.
With some Spanish words she gives an accompanying translation, but with others she leaves the reader to discern the message through context. Here are some of Beatty’s most commonly used Spanish words and phrases with their meanings in English:
- Ay de mí: an expression of dismay—“Oh my goodness!”
- Baile: a dance
- Gringo: a US citizen not of Hispanic descent
- La Ayuda: welfare assistance
- La Migra: officers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now ICE)
- Pocha/Pocho: a US citizen of Mexican descent
- Profesora: a teacher
- Tonto: a “dummy”
- Vago: a slacker
Third-Person/Omniscient Narrator
Beatty combines two “voices” to tell the story of Lupita Mañana. She uses the third person to describe what is going on with Lupita and give readers insight into the main character’s thought and actions. Periodically, however, Beatty uses her prerogative to become the “omniscient narrator” and expand what she wants to tell her readers. For instance, she speaks in generalities about the cities of Ensenada, Tijuana, and Indio, telling readers things that Lupita does not know.
Because she never tells the story from any other character’s viewpoint, readers are able to lock in on Lupita’s perceptions and accept her as the focal point of the story. Beatty makes these transitions seamlessly, allowing the reader to become absorbed into the narrative. The story has the effect of drawing the reader into Lupita’s mind and emotions.
