Use of Literary Techniques to Characterize Rachel in Cisneros’ Eleven

The complexity of Rachel’s character differs within the play. On the one hand, Rachel is portrayed in a male disguise showing she has independence as she has taken matters into her own hands, her successful manipulation through disguise perhaps demonstrating her intelligence and how easily women can dupe men. This could also suggest that she is not acting according to the social ‘norms’ for women in the 60s demonstrating that she doesn’t fear people’s views of her although she is a woman. She demonstrates her strength and independence as she takes matters into her own hands ‘I’ll take two hundred in cash’ and acts in a violent way ‘Rachel slaps Francis’, portraying the growing power of women. On the other hand, Bean could have done this to project the message that women cannot hold any power without the help of a man. Although she has decided to solve her problem herself, she has had to dress up as a man to do so, thus showing that women’s roles are often tokenistic. The motive behind her plan was also for a man illustrating the length a women will go for a man. Had Rachel not dressed up as a man maybe she would not have gotten so far, her success in doing so

My grandfather’s eyes are this color. I’ve lived here mostly my whole life. I’m black. I’m black, I know” (148). Due to the complication of her racial identity she decides that it is easier to ignore it and suit what other people perceive her as. Rachel feels the need to find ways to hide the white aspects of her because other people believe she is simply black. She even hides her “whitest” physical characteristic when she says, “My grandfather’s eyes are this color.” She feels the need to hide the fact that she has a white mother because when people look at her all they can see is the color of her skin which provides her with a feeling of belonging to a societal category.

In this episode, he reveals his emotional and sensitive side as he attempts to console a tearful Dr. Cuddy who was struggling with maternity. He returns to her house later on in the episode and attempts to cheer her up by bringing Dr. Cuddy an age-enhanced photograph of a teenage Rachel. He tries to get her to understand that the motherly love develops over time. He then admits that the photograph came with the frame and was not Rachel.

The most important lesson for Rachel that comes out of this situation is that after wearing the disgusted sweater she has become even older, and it was tied to the experience instead of the birthday itself. She understands that it is the challenge she needs to grow up faster as she will receive additional benefits of behaving the way she wants and resisting to the outside irritators. As for the literature techniques, the author applies language, diction and symbolism to reveal the issues of experience, aging, knowledge, power, authority and freedom. The discovering is gaining age are conveyed with the help of the memories of eleven-year-old girl on her birthday. Rachel resists her humiliation from Mrs. Pierce, and that is the exact moment when her “smart eleven” comes as well[2].

Rachel now sees people in two different ways, she says, "People who look like me and people who don't look like me” (Durrow 9). She also said, “I'm not the color of my skin. I'm a story. One with a past and a future unwritten.”

Sandra Cisneros, an author who is deeply inspired by her Mexican American heritage. This inspiration is clearly shown throughout every one of her writing pieces such as “Salvador Late or Early” and “Eleven”. Both short-stories focus on adolescents with a mature mindset and adult precision, and each story does a marvelous job portraying Cisneros constant writing style. “Salvador Late or Early” is focusing on a young boy, Salvador, with heavy burdens to carry on his shoulders, which is unfortunate because he is such a young boy with an old soul. The responsibilities he has are unimaginable due to the fact they don’t pertain to his age. The short-story “Eleven” is about an eleven-year-old girl named Rachel, a forthright character who explains

In the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros, a young girl named Rachel is characterized. Through a specific incident, Cisneros shows how Rachel does not act as old as eleven ideally should. Through repetition and metaphor, Cisneros alludes to Rachel?s personality and childish views.

In the short stories Eleven by Sandra Cisneros and On Turning Ten by Billy Collins both authors use multiple literary devices to achieve the theme of aging. In Eleven Sandra Cisneros uses figurative language, symbolism and mood to create the theme of aging. While in On Turning Ten the author uses word choice, figurative language and mood. The two of these authors use these literary devices to add to the theme but in different ways. These short stories both compare and contrast in their ways of achieving the theme of mood through figurative language.

The inner battle continues through use of similes and syntax patterns. Cisneros brilliantly weaves a series of vivid metaphors that of an eleven year old to further portray Rachel’s character. “Today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin band-aid box.” This simile characterizes Rachel as not only a child but also portrays her desire to be older. The image evokes a childish habit of collecting pennies in a tin-box, a juvenile form of a most precious piggy bank. But in addition to labeling Rachel’s age, it also hints at her feelings of wanting out. Rachel feels trapped by her ripe young age of eleven because she feels as if she doesn’t have the years behind her to justify her non-acceptance of the sweater. Afraid to say no and stand up for herself, Rachel unwillingly has to take the sweater, which “smells like cottage cheese” and hangs over the edge of her desk “like a waterfall.” Again, we see glances into Rachel’s mind and how she envisions the dreadful sweater. The images allow us to see into an eleven year old’s thoughts and see how the situation looks from a child’s eyes. Telling it like it is, as Rachel seems to do quite often, she describes the smell as cottage cheese, a

, she is giving the readers a way she knows how to describe her feelings. This shows her character because its her describing her feelings in a personal way. The point-of-view of the story helps to characterize Rachel. By the story being in Rachel’s point-of-view, the reader gets first person responses to events.

Cisneros benefits from her usage of voice to show how Rachel, the main character, struggles with growing up and to help readers relate to her. Rachel describes that “when you wake up you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t” (Cisneros 1). Explaining how she doesn’t feel a year older on her birthday, she says that she expects to. This shows how eager she is to grow up, but she’s impatient at the thought of it. However, although she wishes to be older, growing up doesn’t happen all at once. Rachel also illustrates how she’s eleven, but she says “I wish I was one hundred and two” (Cisneros

Rachel is at the earliest stages of her coming of age, going through what may be one of her first painful rites of passage, and already she is changed. Rachel loses her initial innocence, and is in the throes of developing la facultad, because of the behavior of her teacher, faculty. Cisneros’s protagonist is the embodiment of a character at the early stages of obtaining la facultad. In the “foundational and historically significant text” (Saldivar-Hull, p.1) on the Border, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, author Gloria Anzaldua defines la facultad as, “…the capacity to see in surface phenomena the meaning of deeper realities, to see the deep structure below the surface. It is an instant “sensing.” A quick perception arrived at without conscious reasoning.” (Anzaldua, p. 61) Rachel has learned, that none has told her, that “when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven…” and she wishes she was one hundred and two, “anything but eleven.” Rachel, is as Anzaldua posits regarding a person gaining la facultad, “excruciatingly alive in the world,” (Anzaldua, p. 61) and “the pain makes us acutely anxious to avoid more of it,” (Anzaldua, p. 61) which is why Rachel wishes she was one hundred and

Cisneros immediately starts off with the phrase she will use throughout the duration of the story, “[...] 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” (n.p.). This phrase is used to show that as one ages, the previous years will not dissipate, but will simply linger on as another age gets added.

Rachel’s Tears has a lot of significant symbols and pictures, however I choose to make her eyes and the rose the main symbol. I choose this picture because the book is in a significant way named after the picture she drew before she died, which are the eyes and rose. The thirteen tears represent how many students died on April 20,1999. The reason the tears are watering a plant is because, when the students died they brought life to people they had never met. Their deaths changed people’s lives forever. The eyes represent Rachel’s eyes. I have decided to use two quotes from the book, because they were the most commonly used ones in the book. When Rachel said that she was unashamed about her faith and what she believed, she was also willing

Another example of Rachel’s obsession with youth is her love for being surrounded by children and her intense desire to be a mother. This observation is first present on page 5 when Mrs. Loving says to Rachel, “You’re not happy unless some child is trailing along in your rear” (5). This statement allows readers to see Rachel’s infatuation with children. Another example of this is when Rachel states, “I think the loveliest thing of all the lovely things in this world is just (almost in a whisper) being a mother!” (12). She goes on further explaining to her mother, “It was the best in me that said that – it was God! (Pauses). And Ma dear, if I believed that I should grow