76 pages • 2 hours read
Gary SotoBuried Onions
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Onions
Onions are the single most important symbol in the work. They represent sadness and acceptance of the tragedy that can overtake lives. Eddie imagines that there is one big onion located somewhere under the city, sending up vapors of sadness. He is surprised to find what looks to be an onion bulb in Mr. Stiles’ north Fresno backyard. One of his temporary employers has a face that seems to be made of onion skin. Onion fumes in Fresno seem to come up through the asphalt and are a constant, pervasive smell in Fresno’s alleys.
Water
Water is a subtle symbol in the novel. Eddie often goes to the fridge to get a glass of very cold water from the pitcher he keeps there. Water is key in the scene of rebirth and rejuvenation at the river. Eddie can’t swim well but he can float and enjoys the feeling of the water.
Crosses and Crucifixes
There are many crosses and crucifixes in the book. We don’t see anyone in church, but Soto consistently presents the Christian cross as jewelry—faith has been made into fashion, and effectively commodified.
Insects
Insects function as a reflection of man’s meaningless motions, a mirror of the aimless circling referred to at the opening to Chapter 5, and a nuisance that keeps coming back, as evidenced by the roaches. They align with a deterministic landscape wherein humankind has few real choices.
Bodies and Death
The novel opens with Eddie sitting at a picnic table near the mortuary department at his old college. Later, at the hospital, Angel escapes out the back door, where bodies continually go out on their way to the morgue. Eddie notices more than once that more people appear to be going into the hospital than are coming out. Death is frequently foreshadowed and omnipresent. The mortuary program at the college, the mortuary students themselves, the dead bodies of animals and insects, and the references to dead people (Eddie’s father, Jesus, others who have died), all make the study of death and dying a major part of what the novel is about.
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