The Jacket

by Gary Soto

Genres: Short Stories

4 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 1986

About the author

Gary Soto is the author of eleven poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry International, and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in the interview series Poets in Person. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. For ITVS, he produced the film “The Pool Party,” which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence. In 1997, because of his advocacy for reading, he was featured as NBC’s Person-of-the-Week. In 1999, he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He divides his time between Berkeley, California and his hometown of Fresno.

Reviews

[sarah سارة ꫂ᭪ · Rating 2 out of 5]

i don't know why but his utter hatred for the inanimate JACKET ruffled my feathers just a teensy bit.
brother it was never that deep 😭😭

[Christy Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was teaching middle school, I loved having the kids read stories and poems by Gary Soto. He has a beautiful cadence to his writing. His voice and perspective are so important for you guys people to experience. “The Jacket” is autobiographical and focuses on his hate/hate relationship with a jacket his mom gets him. He wanted a biker jacket and got something very different. It’s not cool. It’s ugly. It’s also all his mom could afford. Deep down he knows this but it’s still hard to deal with being poor when things like your clothes signal it to everyone around you. That’s what this story is really about. It’s beautifully told and breaks my heart - both as a young person whose family didn’t have a lot when I was growing up and as a mother who can’t get her kid the “cool” (expensive) things. “The Jacket” resonates with me.

[Franky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember a few of Gary Soto’s stories frequenting some of the literature books in junior high and high school. He tends to write about his experiences growing up and the stories tend to revolve around themes such as coming of age or reflecting on the past and they tend to resonate with the younger audience. In his short story/memoir “The Jacket,” he reflects on a time in fifth grade when he received a jacket from his mother as a gift. While the jacket obviously was given to him with good intentions, it becomes a symbol of shame and embarrassment because of its hideousness. In other way, the jacket may show the narrator’s insecurities with poverty. As a fifth grader, from his viewpoint the jacket, or his “little ugly brother,” becomes the source of whispers, bad rumors, and many of his problems. At least, that is, in his fifth-grade mind. Soto writes the story with a little bit of dry humor, wit, and deep reflection into how he sees the world. There are many ways to read this story, and perhaps one message could be that sometimes when we are younger we blow things out of proportion, especially about things, or items, of gifts, that change meaning over the course of time.

[Phil · Rating 1 out of 5]

mid

[Gael?]

mid

[amanda]

One conflict I liked was when he got mad at his mother and ended up tossing his jacket into an alley. He was frustrated that his siblings got better stuff; to add on, he was pushed to his limit from his self-consciousness about what others thought of him because of his ugly coat to the point of throwing the whole thing away. For example, he says, "I blame that jacket for those bad years, I blame my mother for her bad taste and cheap ways"(10). This proves his anger for what he thinks his mom buying the hideous day-old guacamole colored jacket for him caused.

[Henry Kahn]

good

[Joab · Rating 1 out of 5]

good

[Madden]

One important part was when the boy threw his jacket into the alley. He asked his mom for a black leather jacket instead

[tarik · Rating 5 out of 5]

.