Eleven Analysis

If you're anything like us, when you were eleven, your parents would drone on and on about this mystical and terrifying place called the Real World. And yes, the words were always spoken with capit...

It's time to play everybody's favorite literary game, "What's That Narrative Technique?" Okay, so it's not everybody's favorite game, but once you learn the trick to it, at least it's an easy game...

"Eleven" is a coming-of-age story and also an anti-coming-of-age story. That may seem a bit paradoxical, true, but sometimes you've just got to keep calm and love the paradox.Rachel's is a coming-o...

In "Eleven," a girl named Rachel tells us about an embarrassing moment that happened during math period. Tonally, you'd think this would give the story a The Goldbergs vibe, but that's not actually...

The writing style of "Eleven" creates what literary aficionados call stream of consciousness. Not only is stream of consciousness an horribly long label for such a short story, but it's also associ...

Phew, this is an easy one. "Eleven" is titled so because it is about a girl's experience at school on her eleventh birthday. What's up with the title? That's up with the title. Done and done.Except...

In many ways, the ending to "Eleven" is pretty straightforward. Rachel is shamed at school because Mrs. Price forces her to wear an ugly red sweater. Eventually Phyllis Lopez remembers (admits?) it...

"Eleven" is told from the point of view of eleven-year-old Rachel, and as you'd expect from an eleven-year-old, this means the text is very simple to read. Except it isn't that easy. Even though it...

Cake! (And Other Stuff That Might Be Important)This stage of the story is all about giving readers the background information they need to understand what they're about to read. In some novels, tha...

Cisneros' works have been well received by critics and readers alike, but it hasn't been all sunshine and high praise. In 2012, Cisneros joined several Chicano-American authors whose works were rem...

Steaminess in "Eleven"? Yeah… no. Our protagonist, Rachel, has just turned eleven years old in this short story, so her struggles with understanding sexuality are still a few years away. True, th...

Rachel just turned eleven on the day of the story, so she's not one for making shout-outs to the Gilded Age or the poetry of William Carlos Williams. In fact, she hardly makes any references at all...