When it comes to literature, one of the most important things about each literary work is its title. They help distinguish each piece from another, and are often used as deciding factors when considering what to read. This is because titles always have a deeper meaning to them, giving insight on what kind of literary work it is, and sometimes even what it's about. Always Running is no different. Before I began reading, I made a guess on what the book was going to be about based solely on the title. This was in part due to me being used to TPCASTT-ing, our class's method of analyzing literature, but was mainly done because my favorite part about a story is the foreshadow used in plain sight. For this book, I made a general assumption that "always running" meant running from the past. However, in chapter two, I noticed it was more than that. As if the tragedy from the first chapter wasn't enough already, chapter two begins with a short story explaining how Grillo's childhood friend, Tino, died. It was during this scene, while Tino and Luis were running from the police, where I read the first reference to the title of the book.
While Luis explains how he and Tino ran away, he reflects about this moment saying "It never stopped, this running." Afterwards, Luis elaborated on how this was so, explaining that rather that literally being chased everyday, it was more of the idea of being prey to the police, gangs, junkies, everything. It is here where I get to delve even more into the mind of Luis and his past. In his days of weakness, he felt that everything was out to get him, discriminating him for his ethnicity, judging him for his fear. The reason he was always running was because he felt that he needed the reason to run. The reference to the title is very direct too. Stated within a short simple sentence: "Always Running". By doing this, Luis invokes a deeper emotion for the reader. It's brevity could even be taken in as a tone of regret, or at least that's what it seems like for me.
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