Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros

Introduction

Sandra Cisneros' story “Eleven” is a powerful piece about the struggle of Rachel on her eleventh birthday. On a day that is delightful for most, Rachel fights through her age and maturity to be understood, but she fails because she was blamed by her teacher for being irresponsible for not taking the red sweater to school. Emotional turmoil typically refers to emotional disturbance that happens due to imbalance that is created because of a certain situation. Since Rachel had turned eleven year old, she was in an emotional turmoil because she felt that she was growing old which didn't want to.

In her short story, “Eleven”, Sandra Cisneros writes from the perspective of an eleven year old girl, Rachel. This immediately places the reader in a time zone of particular emotional sensitivity. Eleven, as the author obviously understands, is a very “sensitive” age, especially in a young girl's life. One is on the verge of a new stage of life - the teenage years. One emerges from childhood to adolescence. The element of Rachel turning eleven, makes the story particularly poignant, and connects the author with her readers on a very fundamental level (Madsen, pp. 25).

In the story,” eleven-year-old Rachel's birthday prompts her to consider what it means to grow older. The wisdom of her eleven years has taught her that the years “underneath” the birthday, like the rings inside a tree trunk, make one a certain age. When people want to cry, she reasons, it is part of them that is three that brings on tears; when they are scared, it is the part in them that is five that registers fear. For this reason, Rachel explained, she was not able to act eleven years old that day in school when her teacher wrongly accused her ...