In the story “Uncle Rock” by Gilb Dagoberto, Erick an 11-year-old Mexican American boy is at the center of a mass of men who want the boy’s beautiful and available mother. The author takes the protagonist through three distinct stages of development to show the theme of change in the character’s personality throughout the story. The three important stages are judge of personality, growing appreciation and the ability to act.
Dagoberto presents Erick as a quiet boy that lacks the confidence to speak his mind about what is going on around him. Without a real word from his main character, Gilb illustrates how much Erick understands these men just by their actions. Though Erick is essentially silent through most of the story, it is clear how…show more content… Like all the other men, Erick did not want his mother to be with Roque. Roque is well mannered, the best man in the story making him a major standout as well. According to Erick, Roque is well known in what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t show off, or wear flashy, showy clothes: “He didn’t have a buzz cut like the men who didn’t like kids,” Dagoberto writes. He’s kind, like many of the other men attempted to be, and if you could fault him for anything it would be because he’s “too willing and nice, too considerate, too generous.”(Dagoberto) Even though Erick ridicules Roque in the same category as all the other men, he also saw a positive side, his devotion distinguished him apart “He was there when she asked, gone when she asked, back whenever, grateful.” (Dagoberto). Erick begin to appreciate the fact that Roque enjoyed the company of not only his mother but himself as well. Roque changed the way Erick viewed him as a man and how important his mother’s happiness is to him.
In the final lines of the story is Erick’s most important act. Following the baseball game, the players on the opposite team’s bus take the ball from Erick and offer to sign it. While passing it back to him, they also give him a note that his meant for his mother. In the midst of possibly the best day of his life, a bus full of men use a child to seduce his mother back to their
