“Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros is a story about a girl and her insecurities of wearing an ugly sweater that she is accused of owning by her teacher. The overall purpose of this memoir is to share her experience with the readers so that they will be more aware and will not have to go through the traumatic experience like she did. When the teacher asks the class whose sweater it is, someone says it is hers. The teacher put the sweater on her desk and when she tried to get rid of it, the teacher made her wear it. She started crying and put her head down trying to hide herself. Near the end of class, another girl jumped up claiming the ugly sweater was hers. The worst part is that it is her birthday and she has to deal with all these negative emotions. The except says, “In my head I'm thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and throw over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley”( Cisneros 2). This shows that she started to be more self-conscious about herself and is embarrassed to be seen in an ugly sweater.
I think this specific experience is important to the author because it is when she first realized that every year on her birthday she is one year older, but she still acts like every age she passed through. She thinks she is older, but mentally she is still that little kid she was before. It says, “I don't know why but all of a sudden I'm feeling sick inside, like the part of me that's three wants come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth really hard and try to remember today when I am eleven, eleven”( Cisneros 1). This shows that she is trying not to cry because she thinks that she cannot act like a little kid anymore who cries for everything. The lesson that she learned was that even though she is older, she doesn’t have to grow older mentally. I think she is facing an external and internal