A Study Guide for Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535822589

Book preview

09

Eleven

Sandra Cisneros

1991

Introduction

Sandra Cisneros's short story Eleven first appeared in her 1991 collection Woman Hollering Creek, and Other Stories. In the twenty-two stories in that collection, Cisneros presents characters who live on the border between Mexico and the United States and who struggle with their identities, heritage, and circumstances. As a Chicana, a woman of Mexican heritage born or raised in the United States, Cisneros uses the language and images of her community. In many of the stories, Cisneros inserts Spanish words, phrases, and expressions without translation, thus emphasizing the dual linguistic lives of those who live in San Antonio, Texas, and other border towns. While the stories in the collection are not directly based on events in the author's own life, Cisneros drew on the emotional content of her experiences to create the stories.

Rachel, the first-person narrator of Eleven, finds herself embarrassed and silenced by her teacher on her birthday, through no fault of her own. Any reader who has found himself or herself unjustly treated will identify with Rachel's pain. That the events of the story take place on Rachel's birthday adds a poignancy to the story. Thematically, Cisneros demonstrates the way that a majority-culture educational system reduces minority-culture girls to near invisibility. Eleven and the other stories in Woman Hollering Creek solidify Cisneros's reputation as a masterful, creative, and poetic writer. Her work continues to generate both popular and critical interest.

Author Biography

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 20, 1954. Her father was a Spanish-speaking Mexican, while her mother was an English-speaking Chicana (a woman of Mexican descent either born or raised in the United States). Cisneros was one of seven children, but she was the only daughter in the family. They were poor and moved frequently. This fact of Cisneros's life, along with the extended trips to Mexico to visit her paternal grandmother, contributed to her sense of isolation as a child. In Mexico, she was an outsider because she spoke English and seemed American; in the United States, she was an outsider because she also spoke Spanish and seemed Mexican. Her sense of displacement influenced most of her later writings. In fact, in her loneliness, Cisneros turned to reading and writing as a source of comfort.

In 1966, the family moved to a small two-story house in Chicago's North Side, where Cisneros