TSOTBWH Analysis
The short story “The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse” by William Soroyan is about Aram and Mourad, two cousins with a passion for horses, steal a horse and start to ride it among the fruit orchards and vineyards of the San Joaquin Valley. Though their tribe is known for their honesty, the boys continue to keep the horse until Aram learns how to ride. After he fufills his longing to ride a horse, they secretly take the horse back home. There are four components that contribute to the story, which are dialogue, setting/mood, characters and word choice/vocab. For example, the dialogue element helps the readers understand the story more in depth. “ and then at last, sighing sadly, he said, My white horse which was stolen last month is still gone. I cannot understand it.” (pg. 7). In the previous quote Soroyan adds dialogue to express the farmers gloomy tone more profoundly. Next, the setting/mood component helps the reader to make the setting more imaginable. For example, “good old days” (pg 2) brings a positive or reminiscent vibe to the mood. Also, the setting has been mentioned as the San Joaquin Valley where they live at the edge of town on Walnut Avenue. It helps the readers to not just imagine the valley but specifically where they live. “ Every family has a crazy streak in it somewhere, and my cousin Mourad was considered the natural descendant of the crazy streak in our tribe.” This quote from the story brings us to the next element which is characters. The quote states a fact about Mourad and gives off more information about him. From this quote we can infer that he might be adventurous and “enjoyed being alive” (pg. 3) Finally, word choice/vocab is the last element. As an example, “vagrant” (pg. 4) means a person without a settled home. Soroyan also uses certain word choices to swiftly throw small information about a charcater in the story. William Soroyan uses all four elements to help it merge together and give it a good course.