Eleven by Sandra Cisneros

387 Words2 Pages
In Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, the author writes through the eyes of a young girl on her eleventh birthday. The girl, Rachel, attends school where she has a rather upsetting day. Racheal is characterized by the uses of tone, imagery, and syntax. Cisneros’ tone throughout the story is embarrassed and emotional. Racheal is very shy and doesn’t seem as though she would speak out for any reason she is an introvert and insightful for her age. But she says: “The part of me that’s three wants to come out of my eyes”. Meaning all she wanted to do was cry, Racheal points out that the younger her is coming out which is a very mature thing to do. She doesn’t feel her age; because of her embarrassment she wishes she was one hundred and two rather than eleven. She says “Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a band aid box” she wishes she had one hundred and two rings like in the trunk of a tree to tell her age. The author uses imagery to describe Racheal’s age and the red sweater in that fashion to set the tone of the story. Something to imagine in their head as they think about the young girls age and how she wishes she was older and wiser so she could handle the situation better and stand up to say it’s not her stretched out old sweater. The author also contradicts the mature descriptions used by Racheal in her syntax. She makes a more child-like connection with her use of repetition, for example: “they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.” Also she repeats that she wishes that she was one hundred and two several times. The use of this technique reminds the reader that it is still a young introverted girl writing this story. Occasionally, whether a person is forty five or thirteen they might cry like they are three
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