Eleven" is a brief narrative of only a few pages that is nonetheless a powerful statement on class and culture. Written in the first person, the story describes in the present tense the experience of a young Latina girl named Rachel in school on her eleventh birthday.
The story opens with Rachel's reflection on the nature of time as she contemplates her own birthday. She says that people contain all of the ages they have ever been, and that sometimes younger versions of oneself appear. For example, when someone is very hurt and wants to cry, it might be the three-year-old within him or her that does the crying. She even believes that sometimes an adult might need to feel like a three-year-old. She also astutely observes that the shift from one age to the next does not occur overnight; a person does not go to bed one night as a ten-year-old and wake up the next day eleven. Rather, it takes some getting used to, and it might take several months or almost a year before a person really feels like he or she is eleven years old.
The reason that Rachel contemplates age is because now, on her birthday, she wishes she were one hundred and two, not eleven. An incident with her teacher, Mrs. Price, has deeply wounded Rachel. In a recounting of the incident, when Mrs. Price holds up an ugly red sweater in front of the class and wants to know who owns it, she is clearly annoyed with the person who has left the sweater in the cloakroom for so long. After all the rest of the students deny ownership, Mrs. Price listens to a student say that it belongs to Rachel. Mrs. Price does not listen to Rachel, who is at first dumbfounded and then finally manages to deny ownership in "a little voice that was maybe me when I was four." The teacher overrules Rachel's protest and puts the sweater on her desk.
Rachel has a difficult time containing her inner three-year-old, who wants to cry, but she does so by remembering that her mother will have a birthday cake for her that evening to celebrate her eleventh birthday. She pushes the sweater slowly to the edge of her desk until it almost falls on the floor.Noticing this,Mrs. Price embarrasses Rachel again by interrupting the class and telling Rachel to put on the sweater. As earlier, she does not allow Rachel to speak, and she forces the girl to wear the offending piece of clothing. Rachel suddenly loses control and breaks down weeping, her head on her desk. "I wish I was invisible," she narrates, continuing to weep.
Eleven" is a brief narrative of only a few pages that is nonetheless a powerful statement on class and culture. Written in the first person, the story describes in the present tense the experience of a young Latina girl named Rachel in school on her eleventh birthday.The story opens with Rachel's reflection on the nature of time as she contemplates her own birthday. She says that people contain all of the ages they have ever been, and that sometimes younger versions of oneself appear. For example, when someone is very hurt and wants to cry, it might be the three-year-old within him or her that does the crying. She even believes that sometimes an adult might need to feel like a three-year-old. She also astutely observes that the shift from one age to the next does not occur overnight; a person does not go to bed one night as a ten-year-old and wake up the next day eleven. Rather, it takes some getting used to, and it might take several months or almost a year before a person really feels like he or she is eleven years old.The reason that Rachel contemplates age is because now, on her birthday, she wishes she were one hundred and two, not eleven. An incident with her teacher, Mrs. Price, has deeply wounded Rachel. In a recounting of the incident, when Mrs. Price holds up an ugly red sweater in front of the class and wants to know who owns it, she is clearly annoyed with the person who has left the sweater in the cloakroom for so long. After all the rest of the students deny ownership, Mrs. Price listens to a student say that it belongs to Rachel. Mrs. Price does not listen to Rachel, who is at first dumbfounded and then finally manages to deny ownership in "a little voice that was maybe me when I was four." The teacher overrules Rachel's protest and puts the sweater on her desk.Rachel has a difficult time containing her inner three-year-old, who wants to cry, but she does so by remembering that her mother will have a birthday cake for her that evening to celebrate her eleventh birthday. She pushes the sweater slowly to the edge of her desk until it almost falls on the floor.Noticing this,Mrs. Price embarrasses Rachel again by interrupting the class and telling Rachel to put on the sweater. As earlier, she does not allow Rachel to speak, and she forces the girl to wear the offending piece of clothing. Rachel suddenly loses control and breaks down weeping, her head on her desk. "I wish I was invisible," she narrates, continuing to weep.
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