Eleven By Sandra Cisneros Summary

Age may only be a number, but each year comes with experience: experience in the real world, and experience with life. Throughout humanity, children have always wished to be older and to become an adult. Whether the child wants to be older just so they can stay awake later at night, sit in the front seat of the car, or to not go to school, to be a “grown up” is something that every child desires. Oddly enough, the older and wiser adults get, they wish the exact opposite and want to be young and careless again. The character Rachel in Eleven desperately wants to be older and to have “more pennies in a tin Band-Aid box”. Rachel is struggling with accepting her own age and telling her teacher, Mrs. Price, that an ugly old sweater isn’t hers. In the story, Eleven, the author uses the red sweater as a symbol of age by having the main character talk about age and birthdays, showing that students in the room not wanting to claim it, and forcing Rachel to wear the ugly sweater. In the story, the author uses the red sweater as a representation of age and purposely has Rachel talk about age and how she wants to be older. Rachel is constantly mentioning her birthday and how she is only eleven years old. She believes that she is too young and still acts like a toddler at

In the story Rachel does not want to be young and says that she would much rather be one hundred and two, but on the contrary her teacher wants to be young again. Mrs. Price is jealous that the kids are so carefree and young, but is furious that they aren’t taking advantage of their youth. In general, kids wish to be a grown up, while adults want to be young again. Whether you are merely a child or an adult, everyone wishes for what they can’t