Excursion towards the Evil Eleven
"I'm eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." In the short story, Eleven, Sandra Cisneros's uses descriptive techniques such as similes and imagery to describe the fear and journey towards becoming eleven, as well as forming a childish atmosphere through the eyes of Rachel. These techniques assisted her in characterizing Rachel and helped her to engage the audience by making them feel as though they were in direct contact with her. Prominent characteristics of Rachel that were enlightened due to these literary techniques included Rachel's fear of turning eleven, her precocious behavior, her anxiety, and her animosity towards celebrating birthdays. In order to relate the abstract ideas of Rachel to concrete examples Cisneros used a literary technique known as similes. "Eleven" includes this frequently used technique with the intention to elucidate certain ideas, feelings or thoughts via other tangible items. "Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or the rings inside a tree trunk..." By relating an onion or tree trunk to age, Rachel helps clarify to the audience that her meaning of aging is not only to be the age one presently is, but also to comprise of his/her past years as well.
"Only today I wish I didn't have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box." Once again, Cisneros uses this simile to enhance the reader's understanding of Rachel's apprehension and worries towards turning eleven. By the means of linking nervousness (an intangible feeling) to a concrete idea of "rattling pennies", Rachel's feeling of anxiety is illuminated and the audience can feel her concerns. "I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky..." The hatred of the day in which she turned eleven is so immense that she wishes it were so far away. The audience only knew this feeling of disgust and fear because it was battered into his/her head with the use of similes. As many authors do, Cisneros used similes to bring thoughts and feelings to life by comparing them with solid possessions or ideas, and in 'Eleven' these similes helped perform that goal. In order to amplify the reader's vision of certain situations within the short story, the author makes use of various types of imagery such as olfactory, tactile, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery. "-and pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese." Cisneros uses olfactory imagery of the cottage cheese with the aim of generating a putrid smell of the sweater. Using such imagery, caused the audi
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 963
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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