STACKING CAKE in Sandra Cisneros' ELEVEN

    Context: The red sweater is being forced upon Rachel by Sylvia Saldivar who believes the sweater belongs it Rachel because it is "raggedy and old". Mrs. Price trusts Sylvia and places the sweater on Rachel's desk, despite not receiving confirmation from Rachel to prove if it is indeed hers. The following sentence is Rachel's reaction to this scene:

    "I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside, like the part of me that's three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven." (Cisneros 8)

    I think an identifiable theme in Sandra Cisneros' Eleven is the idea of how aging does not completely reset and instill the societal norms of someone's new age into them; people are extremely different when it comes to past experiences and future aspirations. The idea of aging is like adding layers to something: New things are placed on top, but can only be placed on top of layers that were already placed. Just like a cake: the more layers you add, the more developed the cake becomes, but each layer still plays a part and contributes to the flavor. However, in order to build the cake to its maximum height, you need somewhere to start. I think this is a way to prove that childhood is the most important time period in someone's life, because it builds the base of someone from the very bottom.

    "Age is just a number", I am sure you have heard that saying before. Indeed, the date we were born was noted and now every year we celebrate becoming one year older when we reach that date again. But age goes so much deeper than building a number, in fact the number means absolutely nothing if you don't have experience and knowledge. Experience and knowledge are what build age, the number is what is used to classify the stages at which we had certain levels of experience and knowledge. When Rachel feels the urge to let out her three year old self, she wants to forget about the experience and knowledge that has shaped the way she expresses her emotions and wants to just let out the pure raw emotion that we express at younger ages, which is much more effective at showing how we feel. However, her eleven year old self kicks in and forces her to maintain her composure and hide her raw emotion.

    One observation I have made during my time at Uni thus far is that it is easier to tell apart skippies from other students in the class in lower grade levels. As students who applied to Uni sixth grade are put at the same level as other students, they gain the same experience and knowledge as the older students, and over time this exposure to the same experience and knowledge causes skippies and normal students to become more and more similar despite the different age numbers assigned to them. This connects back to the point I made earlier about layer building with age, as the top layers are being built the exact same way at the exact same time, which makes people seem similar from the outside, but as you talk to them more and learn more about their experiences and ideas, it becomes easier to distinguish between skippies and older students.

    Another thing is that as we grow older, many of the experiences we have are more difficult, and force us to adapt and change. The adaptations make us tougher people who are better experienced and equipped to deal with more difficult experiences. The story presents the idea of how tough experiences can eat through the layers you have built up over time. It is human nature for people to resort to what they have or were given (both object and experience) in times or great stress or need. The scene above with Rachel shows that because she is eleven, while she is still in the developing phase of this, she is becoming more tough and is able to withstand releasing her emotions in this moment, but later on in the story she gives up and releases her emotion.

     To sun this all up, Mrs. Prices' and Sylvia's actions have eaten through the top layer of Rachel's cake, The tough experience Rachel has just gone through has forced her to resort to her past self, a self that is full of emotion and is unafraid to show it. This causes her to expose layers she built up as a younger person.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading it. These are my opinions and I would like to hear what you guys' opinions are on this stuff, as well as your reactions/responses to my idea, so please leave a comment.👇👌👍

-Pieter