A Study Guide for Victor Hernandez Cruz's "Business"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Victor Hernandez Cruz's "Business," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535820073

Book preview

1

Business

Victor Hernandez Cruz

1973

Introduction

Business, first published in the collection Mainland in 1973, is a portrait of a street performer who gets arrested for doing what he does best—selling whistles and puppets and playing guitar for eager crowds. Written by one of the leading contemporary Hispanic-American poets, this work, like many others from the same collection, chronicles the lives of everyday people in New York City, where Victor Hernandez Cruz lived for many years after moving from Puerto Rico. The poem, in its simple tone and straight-forward narrative, humorously satirizes a judicial system that would arrest a man for entertaining people with what the author calls monkey business. On a larger scale, perhaps this poem raises other questions of authority, such as why a person is not allowed to make an honest living doing what he or she does best, in this case, entertaining people or selling puppets and whistles on the