A Rice Sandwich 2 1z3e47

1. About the author The daughter of a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother, Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. After graduating from college, she worked as a teacher to high school dropouts, and she also wrote poetry and short stories. Her poems and fiction won her two fellowships in creative writing, and she later taught creative writing at several Midwest colleges. 2. Title, theme, idea, message. The title of the story „A rice sandwich” represented a narrator’s code, being directly connected with the plot of the story. The theme of the story is desire for attachment and belonging even while yearning for self-sufficiency and independence. The idea of the story is that everyone has the right to development, affirmation. 3. The plot/events The story is told in the 1st person. The author shows the courage and desire to be independence of the main character, Esperanza, because she decides to eat in the canteen like other kids. She got it in her head, to ask her mother to make her a sandwich and write a note to the principal so she could eat in the canteen too and she did it, she showed her determination and her courage. Esperanza wants to be a part of a larger group, even as she seeks to establish her own identity; in fact, breaking away from her family is a part of the process of self-identification. Unfortunately for Esperanza, she fails to gain acceptance and makes no progress toward self-identification in this moment.

4.The structure of the plot The author starts the narration with the description of the kids who eat in the canteen because their mothers aren’t home or home is too far away to get to. After it the inciting moment comes which is the first important action of the story. Esperanza decided to ask her mother to make her a sandwich and write a note to the principal so she could eat in the canteen too. Next comes development of actions from which we learn about other kids who eat at home and why they like to eat at home and not in the canteen. And, just after this comes the turning point of the story, the climax, from which we, finally, learn that Esperanza persuaded her mother to write the letter to Superior Sister to allow her to eat in the canteen because she lives away and she is very skinny. From the resolution we learn that Esperanza eats her rice sandwich in the canteen.

5.The settings The narrator specifies the part of the day, it is midday, when kids have lunch in the school’s canteen, we don’t know what day is because the author said that Monday or Fridays, it doesn’t matter.

6.Characters The main character of the story is Esperanza, who is the narrator of the story. Esperanza is not described directly but we can say about her moral portrait. She is courageous, patient, good, caring, naïve, ambitious. It is seen from the situation when she decides to asks her mother to eat in the canteen. The protagonist is Johanna and the antagonist is the Superior Sister. She is sly, gentle, fragile, and the Superior Sister is uncaring, rude. 7.The conflict The main conflict of the story is that Esperanza deceives the Superior Sister for allowing to eat in the canteen, because she thought that kids who eat in the canteen are independence. 8.Language The style of the language is mixed with neutral and colloquial vocabulary and for that it is easy to understand. The narrator’s style is neutral as we see it from the descriptions. It helps the narrator to send the disposition which is hard and unpredictable. 9.Atmosphere, tone The atmosphere of the story is dramatic throughout the story. On the one hand we ire Esperanza for her courage and desire to become independence, and on the other hand we feel pity for her, because she is able to lie to achieve her purpose. The tone is contradictory, but tranquil . 10.Point of view In this case it is first-person point of view. The main character is the narrator and we get to hear the thoughts of the narrator and see the world depicted in the story through her eyes. 11.Personal response The story is a teaching one, it makes us think about life, about human desires, about that if we want to do something we have to do it honest, honorable. We want to become adults too early, we have to wait only when this moment will arrive. Finnaly, everything depends on the person’s education, traits of character, goals for future, believe in life and God, after all. 12.Stylistic and syntactical devices and figures of speech The story is not rich in lexical and syntactical, stylistic devices and figures of speech. The special kids – epithet, Patrol boys – epithet, suffering is good – oxymoron.