Some may ask, What is a turning point in life? A turning point is when life turns direction. Turning points aren’t as easy as they sound though. Most of the time, turning points are distressing times, but the result of the complex decision is what affects you and possibly the way you look at your surroundings. The following will state how Karana (Blue Dolphins,) Rachel (Eleven,) and Moon Shadow (Dragonwings) faced life changing decisions which impacted their lives. In the excerpt, “ Island of the Blue Dolphins,” Karana faced a decision of revenge or compassion for a wounded dog. Karana wants revenge on the dog for killing her brother, Ramo. “ I fitted the arrow and pulled back the string aiming at his head. Why did I not send the arrow, I …show more content…
Price. “ The eleven-year-old has exceptional thoughts, but can’t share them” (Eleven.) When Rachel’s teacher insists and is confident that an ugly red sweater was Rachel’s and then demanded Rachel to put the filthy sweater on. Rachel has the knowledge to speak up, but doesn’t to show respect and to be the bigger person. At the same time, Rachel is not confident enough to admit her wisdom. “ What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you are eleven you are also, ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one” (Eleven.) This shows how she identifies the past and present years as they come and go, and notices that all your previous years are always still inside you. “ Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next” (Eleven.) The result of Rachel’s actions was frustrating due to Mrs. Price being immature about the sweater situation, leaving Rachel humiliated in front of the whole class. Until a girl named Phyllis Lopez at the end of the class said the sweater was her. Soon, Rachel realizes, that it was too late to celebrate her birthday. “ Today I’m eleven. There is a cake Mama’s making for tonight and when Papa comes home from work, we’ll eat it. There’ll be candles and presents and everybody will sing happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too
However her mind changes once she becomes interested in the dolphins. Alexa quickly realizes that something weird is up with the dolphins and she wants to figure out what is going on. ‘’She seriously thought about what Puerto Marino was doing the dolphins
“Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros and “The Flowers” by Alice Walker are both short stories with underlying themes related to the concept of coming of age, or “growing up”. To be more specific, the idea of loss in the context of childhood innocence is particularly prevalent in these stories. The situation in which this loss occurs is drastically different within the two stories. In “Eleven”, the protagonist, Rachel, is forced to wear a sweater that is believed to be hers by her teacher and classmates.
Eleven by Sandra Cisneros is a story about how a girl named Rachel gets accused of owning the ugly sweater that's been sitting in the coat area for a long time. It shows how the sweater makes Rachel uncomfortable and physically pains her to put it in. The story uses literary devices to show Rachels's complex reaction to the event that happened in her class with the red sweater. One literary device used in simile is when she explains how awful the sweater is “I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese”. Cottage cheese is known to be terrible smelling so it further represents how terrible the sweater is and how much Rachel hates it.
Kasey is twelve years old and holds an anti-social and anti-cheerleader attitude. She is absorbed by an antique doll, and Alexis thinks it’s all in her mind and assumes her sister is just going through another phase. Slowly, Alexis realizes that the concerns in her head were all fake, those problems were becoming life-threatening to her, and her family. Kasey’s eyes slowly go from blue to green, she uses old-fashioned language and she even forgets periods of
Tween or Child? Kamalika Kummathi Critical Thinking/ S2 In the story “Eleven,” Rachel, the narrator, acts more like a child than a tween. The text mentioned that the “sweater hurts me and it is itchy and full of germs that aren’t mine.” (Paragraph 18)
In the story"Eleven", Rachel acts more like a child than a tween. One reason Rachel acts more like a child is in paragraph five,"If I was one hundred and two I'd have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk instead of just sitting with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my mouth". This shows that Rachel acts like a child because she "sat there with that look on my face" or showing emotions without speaking. Another reason might be in paragraph ten said,"I finally say in a little voice that was maybe me when I was four".
Turning points can challenge your life at times. It can make your life better or worse. This idea comes up in Hatchet, a fiction by Gary Paulsen, Guts, a non-fiction by Gary Paulsen, and Island of the Blue dolphins, a fiction by scott o’dell. These stories all have turning points that affect them in the same way, doing so, they change their lives and things around them.
The tone of the story is important in making the story sound like it is being to through the eyes of an eleven year old girl, such phrases like “pennies rattling in a band-aid box” and “my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.” All these are certain phrases that would be used in an eleven year old's life, bandaids for the bumps and scrapes, and the milk that your parents would make you drink. That is the tone Eleven sets, a young girl telling us her humiliating story while she is still a child. Sandra Cisneros does an excellent job at using literary devices to characterize Rachel in “Eleven”. By using imagery, simile, and tone we can see that Rachel is a empathetic, bashful, wise, but still naive in her own ways.
In the story Eleven Rachel, the narrator acts more like a child. The author states, “I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater… I sit there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me, and it does.” Knowing children, they would probably look for the worst in situations they don’t like. They would then try to over exaggerate to get their point across, like “the sweater hurts me.”
Rachel shows her childishness when she stammers out, “That’s not, I don’t, you’re not…Not mine.” I finally say in a little voice that was maybe me when I was four” (53-55). In this quotation, Rachel is too meek to stand up for what she believes in. The additional fear of an authority figure is also a trait commonly associated with young children. Rachel is further shown to contain the traits of a toddler when Cisneros writes, “I put my face down on the desk and bury my face in…my arms” (103-105).
In the short story Eleven by Sandra Cisneros Rachel clemonstreats her multiple years of her eleven years old self two important times. One time Rachel asks less than is three because she has a sweet shirt that is not hers. She don't want the sweatshirt the sweatshirt is not her but she don't say anything. The teacher put on her deck and the teacher tell her to put it on.
In the story “Eleven” Rachel acts more like a child than a tween. In the text Rachel the narrator says “I finally say in a little voice that was maybe me when i was four”. This states directly that its the voice of a young child meaning she acts more childish. to follow up the narrator says “Im crying in front of the whole class. This is childish because crying in front of your class about a sweater is inmature for a tween to do.
The teacher, Ms. Price picks up a sweater and asks the class if anyone is missing a sweater. A student says that it's Rachel's, and the teacher gives her the sweater without even thinking. Rachel thinks and speaks in a way that is very reminiscent of an eleven year old. There is a youthful, innocent tone in her voice, especially when she says “I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven” without actually thinking about the disadvantages of being that age. Throughout the day, she references home and how she longs to go home to celebrate with her family and eat cake.
The author, Sandra Cisneros, uses literary techniques in “Eleven” to characterize Rachel by using metaphors, comparisons, and repetition. In the beginning of Sandra Cisneros’s short story, she states that when a person becomes an age older they will not feel a difference. The character Rachel explains that in different situations, for example, “Like some days you might say something stupid, and [you will feel ten]” a person might feel different from their actual age. She then competes growing old to layers of an onion, rings of a tree, wooden dolls that fit inside each other because, according to her, “that’s how being eleven years old is”.
¨When you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don 't.¨. Her math teacher, ¨Mrs. Price,¨ asks who the red sweatshirt belongs to. Nobody admits to it, so the teacher goes straight to Rachel. ¨Mrs. Price takes the sweater and puts it on Rachel 's desk, but when she opens her mouth to say it is not hers, nothing comes out.¨