Baca's "Past Present"

In Baca’s “Past Present” narrative he uses two different kinds of writing, narrative and persuasive. He blends these two types of writing together in order to make his story to what I believe to be much more effective. Baca used narrative essay in the entire beginning of his story. He used narrative essay to explain his own personal experience in jail. In his story he was the writer of a film that required him to return to jail for a month of filming. The entire time he kept thinking about and referring in detail to the hardships and problems he faced when he was in jail nearly twelve years before. He said, “While my mind told me I was free, my spirit snarled as if I was a prisoner again, and I couldn’t shake the feeling.” Eventually in the story Baca started incorporating persuasive essay into his writing. He used this technique to show his hate for prison. Although most people in the world already know the horrors and terrible background around prison, Baca’s strong anti-views of it seem to bring one to even have a stronger passion against it. He used his personal experiences to convince the reader of how terrible prison is. He ended his story saying “I was struck with pity for those who had to stay, and with simple compassion, too, for myself: for the pain I had endured in this month, and for that eighteen-year-old kid I once was, who had been confined behind walls like these and had survived, but who would never entirely be free of the demons he met behind bars.” He said this to show readers a lasting impression on what his life was and is like now. I found Baca’s story to be very effective. The way he blended his use of narrative and persuasive essays was very effective in influencing me into his beliefs and thoughts. He made me feel sympathetic for him having to revisit prison unwillingly and on different terms.