El Tonto del Barrio by Jose Armas
The short story “El Tonto del Barrio”, written by Jose Armas, is a fiction that expresses many elements of writing. The author develops the elements of plot, setting, theme and character in this story. The theme of this story is about how the main character, Romero Estrada, desires a need for acceptance in his community. The main character in this story is Romero Estrada. The theme of this story revolves around Romero. He desires acceptance in his community. His duty of sweeping streets is his way of giving back to the community. For doing this, the people of the community took care of him and treated him as a “respected citizen”. The story revolves around Romero’s drastic change throughout the story. The author showed Romero as a nice determined individual. Romero knew what his job in society was ,and wanted to do the best job he could. The author showed a kind of sorrow toward Romero. Then the story hit it’s climax when Serferino decided to pay Romero for his duties. Romero’s entire outlook on life then shifted from striving for acceptance to striving for wages. This shift in goals for Romero was a “change (that) was clearly disturbing the community.” With the change in behavior came a change in the author’s feeling for Romero.