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.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Eddie starts a new day musing about what the good life is. He imagines being a father, having time to watch television and drink beers. In contrast to that image, he sees his actual life as one big mess, no matter how many neatly-edged street numbers he paints.
Angel arrives at Eddie’s apartment. Eddie has been speculating about what happened to Mr. Stiles’ car, and believes Angel stole it. Under questioning, Angel admits to having stolen an Acura, but not a truck. This is the first time where we see Eddie’s fertile imagination possibly working against him, as it may not be good for him to accuse Angel without evidence or to initiate a confrontational relationship with him. The accusation against Angel is the beginning of the disintegration of their relationship.
Angel also now has Eddie’s aunt’s gun and is more set than ever on revenge killing, but keeps insisting he needs Eddie’s help. Aunt Delores had delivered the gun to Angel the night before, after Eddie turned it down. Angel persists in convincing Eddie to join him, using derisive comments to wear at Eddie, but Eddie resists. Finally, Eddie successfully puts himself down to get rid of Angel: “I’m a sissy. I’m everything you say” (38). This self-deprecating approach works, and Angel leaves.
Eddie next heads out to sell his college textbooks. At the college, he flirts with the cafeteria cashier, and is surprised by her apparent interest in him. She invites him to come by her apartment building’s pool later. Eddie spots a man in yellow shoes seated at a table. According to Angel, the person who killed Jesus had been wearing yellow shoes. Remembering that detail, Eddie begins tailing the man, following him “like a real Sherlock Holmes” (40). He also lets his mind “go wild with violent options” (40), suggesting again the negative side of Eddie’s strong imagination and hinting at the beginnings of a change in Eddie’s goals. Eddie tails the man into a college classroom, then into a parking lot, where he confronts him and asks angrily if he killed Jesus and, even more loudly, why he killed Jesus. Campus cops are spotted in the distance, coming toward the two. Eddie walks away, but his “breath is wild with some force that could have broken the world in half” (43).
Back at the apartment there is a polite note from Mr. Stiles that asks Eddie for his truck back, implicitly making it clear he believes Eddie stole it and knows where it is. Eddie makes up his mind to return the keys and tell Stiles that he didn’t do it but that he hopes Stiles can find his truck. He takes a bus and then walks a mile to do this since his bike is still at Mr. Stiles’ house. As Eddie departs from the man’s porch after leaving his note and the key, the small neighbor kid who keeps causing trouble now yells out that Eddie is a “bitch” (47). Shortly after, cops are looking for Eddie: someone has reported a car thief is in the neighborhood.
Eddie makes it home. He drinks ice water from the cold pitcher in his fridge. Aunt Gloria (the good aunt) and Eddie’s mother arrive at his apartment. The pair do not want him involved in any vengeance killing. The women are pitching a girlfriend for him, a girl named Norma: “Norma is a really pretty girl, and she’s only got one baby” (50). Eddie’s not interested. His mother tries to give him her hearing aid, a metaphor for Eddie not listening to their ideas about the girlfriend. The phone rings and it’s Norma, but a different Norma. This Norma is the cashier from the college. She invites him over to her pool, and amidst the gunfire and howling dogs of the evening, Eddie heads out.
Chapter 4 Summary
At Norma’s place, Eddie is given a soda and two sandwiches, and the two quickly indulge in some kissing and romance. It’s not long, however, before Norma mentions that Eddie reminds her of the late Jesus, and then says, “You know that Angel did it, don’t you?” (54). Eddie is shocked.
Eddie and Norma debate about Norma’s accusation. Eddie can’t believe Angel would have killed Jesus. He also corrects her about his own cousin, Jesus, being a nice person, saying he was a “gangster like everybody else” (55), showing Eddie tries not to lie to himself, even about family. He doesn’t view Angel as being much better, but Eddie also can’t see Angel as someone who would murder Jesus. Still sitting by the pool, Eddie starts considering the possibility. Finally, he asks Norma if she is telling the truth. She affirms earnestly that she is, and Eddie begins to believe her.
Back at his apartment, there is a note from his mother saying goodbye. All is quiet, but as Eddie tries to rest there’s again a knock on the front door. It’s a man in a military uniform, and Eddie’s active imagination kicks in: “they’re here to recruit me. I was filled with hope” (57).
The man turns out to be Jose Dominguez, a friend who is “a cop” (57) in the Marines. Jose tackles Eddie, pushing him hard into the wall—a friendly coming-home gesture. He then takes Eddie out to a restaurant, Cuca’s, for a meal. Eddie tells him about Jesus’ death, and when Jose asks who did it, Eddie only says, “someone” (60).
While at Cuca’s, a poor man selling onions asks Jose to buy a few bags. Jose and Eddie share stories and catch up. Eddie spots a red truck parked nearby and realizes it’s Mr. Stiles’ truck. Eddie tells Jose about Mr. Stiles and the work he had there and how the truck was stolen. After quickly looking over the truck from a distance, Eddie goes back into the restaurant to phone Mr. Stiles to tell him where the truck is, so Stiles can come get it. Mr. Stiles yells at him about stealing his truck, asking why he did it. Eddie again denies the theft.
Returning outside, Eddie is shocked to find Jose doubled over. He has been stabbed by a group of young teenagers. Jose ends up in the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening wounds.
The next morning Eddie heads to the hospital to visit Jose. His view of Angel has deteriorated further. He thinks there’s “[n]o telling when Angel would pull a gun from a paper bag and fire” at him (67).
Eddie thinks in detail about his situation and feels as though one problem is replacing another in his life. He feels spooked, and frets over an image he has in his mind of more people going into the hospital than coming out. Later, this image repeats, as Eddie notices more people getting on a bus than coming off of it. He says, “We were all poor, all going somewhere. But where?” (68).
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
In these chapters Eddie becomes more multi-faceted, while his life grows more tragically ironic. Angel’s visit to Eddie’s house shows the reader just how small a world his neighborhood can be; it’s easy for Eddie’s space to be invaded by someone trying to convince him to kill. Soto uses the confrontation to show an aggressive, assertive side to Eddie that we have not seen before. We learn that Eddie can take care of himself fairly well, even with rough, malevolent people. He doesn’t welcome seeing Angel but once Angel’s there, Eddie is willing to confront him and stand his ground.
The setting of Fresno City College also shows Eddie in a new light. Norma, the girl in the cafeteria, provides romantic opportunity for Eddie, though this is ultimately overshadowed by her revelation that Angel killed Jesus, showing that the ceaseless violence of Eddie’ neighborhood works its way into seemingly all of Eddie’s social encounters.
The man in the yellow shoes shows that Eddie’s emotions can run hot but that he also doesn’t let these emotions get the better of him, as evidenced by being able to walk away from the confrontation once the campus police arrive.
The accusatory note from Mr. Stiles ironically brings out the good in Eddie again. Eddie feels compelled to return the key to Mr. Stiles and is invested in defending his honor and doing the right thing.
Eddie’s mother and Aunt Gloria provide comic relief from the novel’s otherwise highly-charged and often-tragic plot points. The women are happy to hear a girl calling him on the phone, and the action of Eddie’s mother attempting to give Eddie her hearing aid shows, with levity, how far this duo of family members is removed from the day-to-day complications of Eddie’s life.
While Eddie’s apartment functions as respite from the building conflicts in his exterior life, as symbolized by the water pitcher he keeps in his refrigerator, Soto also shows how the exterior world and Fresno’s myriad problems increasingly encroach on Eddie and his domestic environs. While Jose’s arrival is largely positive, Angel’s most certainly is not. Most importantly, Soto shows that there is no real break from the violence and uncertainty plaguing Eddie’s neighborhood.
Onions persist as a symbol of Fresno’s plight in these chapters. The bag of onions purchased by Jose just before he is knifed figuratively tie him back to the place he grew up, and there is more tragic irony in the fact that Jose, a Marine, survives war and its potential, injurious conflicts only to return home and be stabbed by a 13-year-old. Even for those who find a way out of Fresno, they risk life and limb, upon return.
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