Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Context for "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits"

In "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits", Espada tells a story about a disgruntled janitor that is fed up with the discrimination he recieves while doing his underappreciated work for his church. Countless times throughout the poem, the janitor talks about how no one cares about the Latin American country he was from, or how to pronounce his name, which shows the extent of prejudice he puts up with from the fellow church goers. The irony of this poem, is that regarding his particular work location being a church, which one would think would be a place of acceptance, turns out to be a place of segregation and bigotry. Ultimately as the title of the poem states, the janitor quits, because he comes to the conclusion that the church goers viewed him simply as a device of the church that kept the grounds clean, making him appear to them, as no different than the "crazy squid" mop he used in achieveing their demands.

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