Eleven is a short story written by Sandra Cisneros about a eleven-year old girl named Rachel. The story takes place on Rachel’s eleventh birthday at school. The teacher found a lost ugly red sweater in the coatroom and asked the class whose sweater it was. Everyone except Rachel said that it was not theirs, so Mrs Price, the teacher, gave it to Rachel. Rachel denied being its owner, but Mrs Price insisted that it was hers, since Mrs Price alleged that she “saw” her wearing it once. After Mrs Price left her desk and began to teach, Rachel tried to get as far away from the sweater as possible by sliding the sweater with a ruler and scooched her chair away from it. Mrs Price noticed what Rachel was doing, and she made her put it on. Rachel started crying, and Phyllis Lopez, another student “who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar”, finally admitted that it was her sweater.
It takes time to mature, and on the inside, wrapped by the current self, is the younger self. Every person has habits and experiences from younger ages inside of them. In the story, Rachel explains that age is like an onion, matryoshka, or tree rings because at each age, one has all the other ages inside. When Mrs Price makes Rachel put on the sweater, her three year old self breaks out of her eleven year old shell and causes her to have a tantrum. If she was one hundred and two, she would have had the experience inside of her to help her cope with the situation she was faced with. All the time, old people can be like ten-year-olds and they will appreciate a good joke. Fully grown adults can be like toddlers when they do not get what they want. They will yell and sometimes even throw things around. Maturing is a gradual process, and beneath the oldest skin, is each younger age.
Authorities should be respected, but not everything they say is right. Most of the time, people must do what authorities such as bosses, teachers, parents, or police officers say are right, but sometimes, they are wrong and one cannot stand up to them to correct them. In Eleven, Rachel says that “Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.” In the situation, the teacher was actually wrong and Rachel was right, but since Mrs Price was the teacher, telling her that she was wrong would get Rachel in trouble. The same might happen in real life. If a manager tells an employee to do something bad, the employee usually has to do it, unless he or she is highly respected by the manager. If the employee doesn’t follow orders, he or she might be fired. Although people in charge are not infallible, they can be difficult to talk back to.
After many bad things happen, most people will long for home, because they see it as shelter from the rest of the chaotic world. After narrating what happened at school, she talked about what would happen at home. This implies that after what had happened at school, she was looking forward to going home. Many real people may feel like this too. After a traumatic or stressful event, they will look forward to going home. Sometimes, the event does not even have to be that serious. Even a camping trip may cause homesickness. The reason for this is that many people see home as not just a place they live, but a place that makes them happy, safe, and comfortable. When someone feels homesickness, it is their brain telling them that they are in a place that the brain believes is unusual or unsafe. Most people will long for a place of safety like home when in a difficult situation.
In Eleven, a girl named Rachel had her eleventh birthday. At school that day, her teacher made her put on a sweater that was not her sweater, and she began to cry. In the end, another student claimed it, and the teacher acted like nothing happened. In the story, Rachel demonstrates that people of a certain age actually contain their previous selves inside of themself, and when the teacher made her put on the sweater, her three-year-old self broke out and caused her to start crying. Also, the people in charge, such as teachers, deserve respect, but are not always correct “because she’s older and the teacher,” even though correcting them may bring consequences. Rachel tried to argue back at the teacher, but the teacher just overrode Rachel’s denial of possessing the sweater. And last but not the least, home is not just shelter, but also safety and repose from this chaotic and unpredictable world.
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