Snow and eleven essay sample

Sandra Cisneros’ "Eleven" and Julia Alvarez’s "Snow" are both interesting short stories. Although there are differences between them, they share many similarities such as point of view, theme and protagonist types.
The most immediately noticeable similarity between the two stories is their titles. Both “Snow” and “Eleven” have titles comprised of just one word. Furthermore, although obscure, both titles provide an effective context for the stories that follow as snow and eleven are central to the respective tales.
The protagonists of both stories are young girls. Both stories are also told in first person narrative from the perspective of the young girls, though they differ as “Snow” is told in the past tense and “Eleven” is told in the present tense. The narrator of “Snow” is Yolanda and the narrator of “Eleven” is Rachel.
The different tenses allow for the voices also to be very different in the two stories. Yolanda, who has immigrated into the United States, is telling the story from years on. We know this straight away as the opening line is “Our first year in New York we rented a small apartment” (Alvarez), suggesting that she is looking back on what happened in hindsight. In “Eleven,” on the other hand, Rachel is telling the story as it happens. We find this out a few paragraphs in, with the line: “Only today I wish I didn't have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box” (Cisneros). The use of “today” tells the reader that the story is in present tense.
Despite the tenses and voices differing, the two stories have certain themes in common. Most significant is the lack of experience that the girls have, due to their young ages, and the ways in which their lives are changing on a daily basis as they learn more about the world. In “Snow,” Yolanda believes there to be a bomb falling outside the classroom, but it turns out to be snow. She has never seen snow before and only knows what a bomb might look like as her teacher had drawn one on the blackboard as part of a lesson. In “Eleven,” Rachel lacks experience in dealing with difficult situations. She is strikingly aware of her deficiency, despite her age, and even comments twice that she wishes she was one hundred and two years old so that she would know how to deal with the situation with the red sweater.
Another similarity is in the solitude of the two girls. We are told explicitly that Yolanda has just moved to the United States. She does not speak much of the language and sits on her own at the front of the class so that the teacher can help her without disturbing the other children. She is solitary at school and does not mention speaking to anyone other than the teacher. Similarly, Rachel doesn’t appear to have friends in the classroom. She only mentions two other girls and refers to them both as “stupid” (Cisneros) and seems to have no one to comfort her when she is crying, not even her teacher.
Both “Snow” and “Eleven” are poignant, well thought out stories that are likely to appeal to a wide audience. The protagonists are similar to one another in many ways, and the narrative devices used in each highlights this.