Reviewing Short Story Elements for “Eleven”

Point of view

This story is told in a first person point of view This story is told in a first person point of view. This affects how we view the protagonist as when Rachel is crying, we get to feel her emotions and physical reactions, which we have all experienced before. It becomes clear just how important it is for her to not be the owner of the red sweater, so we don’t just see her as a normal little girl crying.

Setting

The story takes place on Rachel’s 11th birthday, in her class at school. Due to the added factor that the day the story takes place is a special day for the protagonist, the extreme reaction she has to the teacher’s insistence that the sweater belongs to her makes sense to the reader and takes on deeper meaning. It also sets the stage for the main conflicts between Rachel and the teacher or students.

Character Analysis Round or Flat?? Dynamic or Static??

The main character, Rachel, is a round character The main character, Rachel, is a round character. She is quite self-aware or introspective as she thinks about what it means to be a certain age. She is obedient and shy, being unable to speak up to challenge her teacher even though she is obviously very frustrated and wants to reveal the truth. She is also sensitive and kind when she mentions that she tells her mother it is okay to cry if she is sad.

Rachel is a static character in the story Rachel is a static character in the story. She expresses her wish to be older, to be wiser, so that she could tell her teacher the truth in a way that will make everyone believe that the sweater doesn’t belong to her, but she never manages to achieve this goal. Instead, she ends up crying uncontrollably, wishing she was invisible.

Conflicts Internal? External?

There is an obvious conflict between Rachel and her teacher; Mrs There is an obvious conflict between Rachel and her teacher; Mrs. Price insists that the sweater is Rachel’s and that she must put it on even though Rachel tries weakly to tell her the truth, that the sweater belongs to someone else. Because Mrs. Price is “older and she’s the teacher, she’s right”; Rachel feels powerless.

Rachel experiences an internal conflict as she fights to control her emotions and to speak up for herself. She wishes she “was one hundred and two instead of eleven” so that she would be able to tell everyone the truth “instead of just sitting there with that look on [her] face and nothing coming out of [her]mouth.” She feels sick and keeps wondering when she can take it and throw it away, but she never manages to do anything other than cry.

Foreshadowing

At the beginning of the story, there are clues about people acting a different age than they really are. Rachel says that we grow up like rings inside a tree, so that an 11-year-old girl may behave like a 3-year-old girl. This foreshadows the end of the story when she cries uncontrollably, making “little animal noises” and her “body shaking like when you have the hiccups”.

The ending – Positive, or negative?

The ending is generally negative for the protagonist for two reasons The ending is generally negative for the protagonist for two reasons. First, she has lost the fight with the teacher and had to take ownership of the sweater, which was humiliating to her. Second, she lost the fight within herself not to act like a child and embarrass herself by sobbing in front of the class. In the end, she is left with the feeling of wanting to disappear and to run away from the situation. She remembers the birthday party is still coming up, but she says that “it’s too late” as she will not forget the awful events of the day.

Theme a truth about life; try not to use “should”

A possible theme of this story could be that often your age is not reflected in the way you act, and that’s fine. There will be times where we would wish to flee, to be older and wiser so that we could react differently, but we are stuck in the present with nothing to guide us but our lessons and experiences from the past.

I think the main message the author is conveying is that as you grow older, there are younger parts of you that will peek their heads out from time to time. Sometimes when we are emotional, we react in ways we wouldn’t have imagined. People might not behave as we expect them to act for a certain age, but that makes us who we really are – human.