Even though this story was written for children I immediately felt how it could relate to grown-ups, too. And that is, I suppose, why I choose to focus on creating literature that could be considered child-like or at the very least harmless rather than mature or disturbing. Why do we feel the need as adults, as writers, or whatever the reasoning may be, why do we feel the need to declare our grown-up-ness by watching, writing, speaking of, etc things that as children we were not allowed to? Or is that the curious or rebellious child in us claiming the liberation that comes with the newfound ability to make our own choices?
If you can find it somewhere on the internet I suggest you read "Eleven." Its ok, you can go look for it now; I'll wait. BUT if you find a youtube video claiming to be a video adaptation of "Eleven" don't watch it... stupid 2 minutes I won't ever get back...
So, just like Cisneros says in her short story, we are all our age plus all the ages we were before. Somewhere inside of each of us (depending on our age of course) is an eleven-year-old, and a five-year-old, and a one-year-old. I completely agree. And I do think its childish to think that "mature content" makes us any more or any less of an adult. I guess I just don't get the logic behind that. Sorry for the tangent.
I'd like to focus on Cisneros' actual writing, since that's why I'm here. I know that I'm not at the writing ability that Cisneros is at in this piece. First of all I can't help but love her beautiful use of literary language, like some of her metaphors here:
the way you grow old is kind of like and onion or like the rings inside of a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other...
rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box.
sitting there like a big red mountain... hanging all over the edge like a waterfall.
my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.
far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky...And she does a superb job of giving her narrator a voice. To do this she uses specific words, and sentence structure, and fragments or repetition. All of these things really help me see that Cisnero is an artist.
I've been learning this semester that while I consider myself to have some salvageable qualities as a writer (hopefully that is true and I'm not unjustly evaluating my own abilities), I lack in many of the artist areas of literary storytelling. Dialogue, no prob. But when confronted with the need to set a scene using highly poetic literary tools, I fall short. Don't get me wrong I can write a good ol' metaphor (she trudged up the stairs like she was made of stone... ?) but it doesn't just happen like the other aspects of writing. Maybe it is something I will always have to keep on the to-do list of things to check for when revising but I'd like to think that with practice I can reach the point when it, too, will just happen.
If you have an interest in learning more about Sandra C. you can go to her website: http://www.sandracisneros.com/. She's not really a children's author, so if that doesn't float your boat don't be turned off by my analysis of this particular piece of hers. I particularly liked reading her frontpage letter to the "Former Students of Katie Burchert, Northeast Middle School, Reading, Pennsylvania."
Thanks for reading,
Jessica
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