“In that cage of the chest where something throbs with both fists and knows what only Salvador knows, inside that body too small to contain the hundred balloons of happiness, the single guitar of grief, is a boy like any other disappearing out the door.” In both of her short stories, Sandra Cisneros writes with a raw emotion. Using a wide variety of descriptions that help to develop overall tone, Cisneros forces the readers to confront their own emotions through the emotions of her characters. So, in both short stories “Salvador Late or Early” and “Eleven”,Sandra
Cisneros uses figurative language, imagery and character emotions to develop characterization and to build a sad but hopeful tone.
The sad but still hopeful tone in both stories was established through usage of…show more content… “…is a boy who is no one’s friend, runs along somewhere in that vague direction where the homes are the color of bad weather, lives behind a raw wood doorway…” (Salvador Late or Early, paragraph one) The usage of figurative language and imagery help to build tone in this except help to build tone, with the blunt reality of poverty and filth establishing a sad tone early on in the story. A similar example of giving a sadder tone to a story can be found in “Eleven” as well, but unlike in “Salvador Late or Early” this tone is not given to the story until a little bit later on. In paragraph 12, Rachel says, “Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirtytwo, and math problem number four. 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.” Here, Sandra Cisneros uses character emotions more than imagery to begin developing a sadder tone in “Eleven.” So, both stories develop a similar sad tone, just in different ways. Also, in
