Abuela Invent The Zero Analysis

People have experiences on a day-to-day basis, some small, some large, but they all shape who they are, and in turn affect their values for the good or for the bad. They are best shown through literature, since it allows for realistic life experiences to be created in fictitious worlds. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Abuela Invent the Zero” both demonstrate the protagonist developing more appropriate values from important life experiences. In each of these classic stories, the main characters, Tom and Constancia, both have life experiences that shape them to cherish new things and value ideas that cause them to become more suitable, and rational people.

Tom Sawyer, the protagonist of The Adventures of Tom

Constancia is made known to the reader as a socially-caring teenager, arguing over taking her “embarrassing” grandmother to church, “[Her] father [decided] that he should stay home with my mother and that I should escort la abuela to church. He [told] me this on Saturday night as [I was] getting ready to go out to the mall with my friends.’No way,’ I [said].” (Ortiz Cofer 1). Constancia is reluctant to take her grandmother to church, since she believes that it is something that would ruin her social status among her friends. Though, even when Constancia takes her grandmother to church, she still feels to protect her social status than to help her poor grandmother, who is lost. Constancia ends up learning of her grandmother’s hardships, and drops the selfish character, saying, “That’s when I’m sent to my room to consider a number I hadn’t thought much about—until today. ” (Ortiz Cofer page 2). Constancia learns to value her grandmother, since she was the driving force that allowed her mother to be sent to America. From this she has transformed into a more understanding teenager, and learns to respect her grandmother because of this. Constancia was a selfish, social-status caring teenager who believes that her grandmother is embarrassing to be around, yet after her experience at the church, she learns to value her grandmother more, and respect her as much as