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Sandra Cisneros

Good Essays

Sandra Cisneros, an author who is deeply inspired by her Mexican American heritage. This inspiration is clearly shown throughout every one of her writing pieces such as “Salvador Late or Early” and “Eleven”. Both short-stories focus on adolescents with a mature mindset and adult precision, and each story does a marvelous job portraying Cisneros constant writing style. “Salvador Late or Early” is focusing on a young boy, Salvador, with heavy burdens to carry on his shoulders, which is unfortunate because he is such a young boy with an old soul. The responsibilities he has are unimaginable due to the fact they don’t pertain to his age. The short-story “Eleven” is about an eleven-year-old girl named Rachel, a forthright character who explains …show more content…

However, the way Rachel narrates the short-story represents her mature perspective and adult precision. Each story written by Sandra Cisneros both show the point of view from which the story is told and the effect it has on the thematic purposes, the characterization and diction present in the stories, and the stylistic choice chosen by Cisneros, which is figurative language. In “Salvador Late or Early”, it is a third-person point of view. In the short-story, it provides a visual of Salvador as a scrawny, ugly boy. However, the narrator describes him as not what meets the eye; he is a tough young boy who is responsible and mature. This is a perfect example of why it is wrong to make assumptions of people. If the point of view was different, and one was knowledgeable of the fact that Salvador is worth more than what he seems, then all he would be is a boy with “eyes the color of a caterpillar” and “of the crooked hair and crooked teeth,” (Paragraph 1). The point of view from which the story is told evidently affects the thematic …show more content…

“Salvador Late or Early” includes figurative language all throughout the short-story. For example, “Salvador with eyes the color of caterpillar,” (Paragraph 1, Line 1) is a metaphor suggesting metamorphosis and even though he is a caterpillar stuck inside its cocoon, he will soon become a beautiful, graceful butterfly. This metaphor gives rise to the artistic voice and thematic meaning because the message this short-story is trying to send is that no matter how worthless one may feel and if they think that they’ll never have enough power to hatch out of their cocoon, in the end, they will always become the beautiful, graceful butterfly they were all along. Another example of figurative language in “Salvador Late or Early” is a metaphor in paragraph 2: “Arturito has dropped the cigar box of crayons, has let go the hundred little fingers of red, green, yellow, blue, and nub of black sticks that tumble and spill over and beyond the asphalt puddles…” This symbolizes a rainbow after a storm, and the deeper meaning behind this symbolism is that although Salvador is caught in the middle of a brutal storm, the sun will soon come out and he will find a rainbow. One example of figurative language in “Eleven” is when Rachel uses similes such as “Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little

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