What's love got to do with it? Well, in the case of "Oranges": everything. Despite the fruit-specific title, this poem is about love from start to finish. Soto just uses oranges to represent love, instead of those tired old red roses. Plus, with the oranges, they double as a snack (yum). In "Oranges," evidence of the speaker's love for the girl doesn't come in the form of grand declarations and flowery language. It's in his observations and vivid descriptions that we can see and feel the speaker's love.
Questions About Love
- Do you consider "Oranges" a "love poem"? Why or why not?
- Which of the speaker's descriptions or actions most clearly demonstrate how he feels about the girl? How does it express the speaker's emotions?
- Soto uses oranges to represent love. Would this poem work with some other kind of fruit? If so, which ones? If not, why?
Chew on This
Cut the chase, gang. In "Oranges," Gary Soto's vivid descriptions and observations paint a more moving and realistic picture of young love than flowery language and grand declarations can.
The depiction of young love in "Oranges" is overly-romanticized. Because the speaker is remembering an event from long ago, he is giving us an incomplete, overly-positive sense of the experience. Love stinks.