Analysis Of Liliana Hecker's The Stolen Party

In the essay The Way We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson writes that “All the ‘isms’-racism, sexism, ageism, et al.-are founded on and fueled by the stereotype and the cliché, which are lies of exaggeration, omission, and ignorance. They are always dangerous. They take a single tree and make it a landscape.” This quote is important due to the fact that stereotypes play a major role in many aspects of our society. In American society we have a tendency to pass judgment on people just because of a pre-existing stereotype that our society has formed on particular groups over the years. American Society tends to create stereotypes because of the simplicity it adds to our lives, but stereotypes can cause us to oversimplify the characteristics

Furthermore, stereotypes are used to increase an individual’s self-esteem and strengthen their social identity. Social identity theory contributes largely to the formation of stereotypes, as it states that a person’s social identity is formed from being part of a group. To justify one’s own group, they often pick out real or imaginary differences and flaws in other groups and compare those to their own group (Ford & Tonander, 1998). This led Ford

Stereotypes are socially constructed, over-generalized views regarding a particular group of persons with certain characteristics that are widely accepted, and usually expected, in a society. The dominant group of a certain society, which in this case is probably Caucasians and men, usually creates these social constructions. Claude M. Steele, a researcher from Stanford University, performed multiple research studies on the idea and psychological effects of stereotypes on its victims. In his studies, he coins the term “stereotype threat” as the “social-psychological predicament that can arise from widely-known negative stereotypes about one's group,” which implies that “the existence of such a stereotype means that anything one does or any of one's features that conform to it make the stereotype more plausible as a self-characterization in the eyes of others, and perhaps even in one's own eyes” (Steele 797).

International Festival of Literature Berlin: “Artist Portrait: Liliana Heker”. Culturebase.net. 28 April. 2005. Web. 4 Sept. 2014

This reference shows how music lays a foundation of teenage values beyond school or parental teaching. A musical artist can influence a young mind by the chosen lyrics with greater effectiveness than formal education. Music can control or enhance moods. A good mood can get better or a bad mood can be worked through with the choice of music. A bad mood can also be enhanced by lyrics about suicide or violent behavior. Teens can also use music to gain information about the adult world, to withdraw from social contact, facilitate friendships and social settings, or to help them create a personal identity. (O'Toole, 1997)

Prejudice can manifest itself in many different ways, sometimes in the least likely of them. We often assume that the people we place our trust and faith in are free of prejudice, but this is not always true. We can observe this in real life and literature, as seen through the short story “The Stolen Party” by Liliana Heker. This story, about a young girl learning to understand the nature of prejudice and trust, introduces an important theme; that when we encounter prejudice, we should fight for what we believe. This theme is explored through Rosaura’s interaction with her mother, Luciana’s cousin and Senora Ines. These three characters lead Rosaura to question her beliefs, but nonetheless encourage her to to challenge any prejudice directed

Stereotyping is a normal part of every one’s life. Humans, by nature, classify things. We name animals and classify them by common characteristics but stereotyping can have negative repercussions, and everyone does it. In a recent study it was proven that everyone has an unconscious need to stereotype (Paul). In Junteenth and The Invisible man, Ralph Ellison argues that stereotyping can cause mayhem by making the people become something they are not.

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

An intelligent Black boy, who dumbs himself down to avoid criticism. The Hispanic girl who stays at home to take care of her family, instead of going to school. The Asian who pursues a career in medicine, despite wanting to be an actor. All of these strange actions can be explained by the Critical Race Theory. In short, the Critical Race Theory examines how victims of racism and stereotypes counter prejudice. Under the Critical Race Theory falls stereotype threat in which victims assume the roles that they think are prescribed for them based on popular stereotypes. The aim of stereotype threat and the Critical Race Theory is to explain both negative and positive ways minorities are effected by their race and how this reflected in our society as a whole.

Patton Oswalt's essay, “You Gotta Fight for Your Right to F%@k Up” (2016), argues that the freedom to make a mistake without having it affect the reputation of one’s peer group is integral to the improvement of humanity. Through excess use of repetition, Oswalt exhausts the reader through his provision of numerous present day and past examples of minorities making mistakes, having their peer group suffer from stereotyping as a result. By tiring the reader with similar examples phrased in similar fashions, Oswalt stresses the notion that it always has been and forever will be ridiculous and ignorant to make assumptions about entire groups of people, as a single individual never characterizes the masses, in order to evoke possible change. Oswalt

However, many of the group-based stereotypes are incorrect and generalizing and it promotes further misunderstandings and prejudice. Prejudice is having a false attitude toward an out-group in comparison to one’s in-group. Prejudiced individuals are prejudging without knowing any information about the “Others” (Rogers and Steinfatt).

   In Liliana Heker’s story, "The Stolen Party," the young child Rosaura is hurt because she is a victim of a class structure which keeps the rich on the top and people like her and her mother at the bottom of society. By the end of the story Rosaura will have learned a very important lesson in class structure which, because it is so traumatic for her, she will carry with her for the rest of her life.

Social identity is a theory which explains how people develop a sense of belong and membership to a group. Individual’s social identity is part of their self-concept which derives from their knowledge of their membership of a social group together with the emotional significance attached to that membership (Forsyth, 13). People are influenced on the group they belong to. Belonging to the in-group makes a person feel good because they belong somewhere in this group and allows them to feel important. The out-group is where people feel to be, they do not belong to a group and have feeling of exclusion and are often times treated more harshly than someone who belongs to the ingroup. This bias of favoring the ingroup relative to the outgroup leads to false impressions being made and stereotypes forming. Stereotypes help us navigate the world around us by providing a quick representation of what we think a person is like. This does not mean our perceptions are always correct and occasionally, this quick mental shortcut can get us into trouble. For example, the film 12 Angry Men stereotyping was rampant among the jury. When a stereotype is used it can cause a disruption of procedures. Instead, of inspecting all the evidence with an objective eye a bias can allow for systematic

In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into

Kate Simonds’ Ted Talk speaks out the truth of inequity towards young people, especially on teens in regards of voicing and expressing their thoughts and ideas without being neglected. It discusses the challenges of teens’ voice being heard due to the societal perception towards the insignificance of young people’s voice as they are labeled as “naive and ignorant”. Kate Simonds’ stated on her Ted talk that “the only qualification to being a TED speaker is to have an idea. An idea you think is worth spreading” which she stated to be a problem due to her age of 17 which will lead to her idea being accounted to be worthless. To further emphasize her point of unfairness, She added humor on her speech saying “you’re only respecting me because I’m on this stage. Maybe it’s because you like my extremely high heels” which somewhat makes her acceptable to the society to be heard of as she wears “high heels” which can represent maturity because it is most common and norms for an adult to wear heels. Her introduction was well executed as she was able to outline and introduce the problem, thus, leading her to state her opinion on her thesis that “any idea should be respected no matter the age of who it comes from.” Furthermore, she discusses how unfairness towards teens are present in many different situations where adults neglect and don't respect her voice and it was stated that “according to a Life Science article from 2008, that because [she’s] a teenager, [she] can’t experience empathy which is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Also, argues that students are being looked down upon and she talks about the expectations from students such as following the system education and how they are not expected to oblige. Overall, this discusses how young people are often told “You don’t get it, you’re 17. You don’t deserve to have the control over what you learn” this statement is contributing factors to why many voices are often unheard because others are ignorant.