Antonio Spring Green Analysis

When Antonio realizes that spring is coming, the theme of his brothers changing and developing new, wild, bad urges is introduced. This is symbolized by spring and tree sap. The theme of the brothers’ life moving on is symbolized by many of the classically spring-like images. One example of this is how the “lime-green of spring came and… Dark buds appeared on branches.” Here, Rudolfo Anaya artfully shows how the color green, which can represent growth and virility, is being used to show that the brothers’ life is moving on. However, those same lives are being marred by the dark buds, which show that dark, and bad occurrences are happening. Buds on trees are what new shoots and branches grow out of, so Anaya is showing how new, bad events and changes are taking place. …show more content…
This point is enunciated when the fact that the “blood of spring is called the bad blood.” Antonio understands that it is bad because it calls the bad urges of people that had been suppressed by winter, like the dark buds. The sap and the blood are liquids that show how time is liquid. Time can be frozen like the sap of the tree, or it can flow warm and free around someone like the blood of his brothers. It can be frozen and then thaw out to grow new and better life, or it can thaw out to make new bad changes. An example is that during the winter, the brothers were like “turgid animals.” They made bad choices and were squandering their money in the back room of the Eight Ball Pool Hall. When the mother knows that the sons are doing immoral deeds, she is worried about them, as much “as she was when they were at war”. Yet, she doesn’t care because they are with her. This fact shows that the mother is in denial about the change that is going on, and this shows that the mother doesn’t want time and change to continue. The father, on the other hand, wants the sons to help him realize his