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Island Of The Blue Dolphins Turning Points

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Some may ask, What is a turning point in life? A turning point is when life turns direction. Turning points aren’t as easy as they sound though. Most of the time, turning points are distressing times, but the result of the complex decision is what affects you and possibly the way you look at your surroundings. The following will state how Karana (Blue Dolphins,) Rachel (Eleven,) and Moon Shadow (Dragonwings) faced life changing decisions which impacted their lives. In the excerpt, “ Island of the Blue Dolphins,” Karana faced a decision of revenge or compassion for a wounded dog. Karana wants revenge on the dog for killing her brother, Ramo. “ I fitted the arrow and pulled back the string aiming at his head. Why did I not send the arrow, I …show more content…

Price. “ The eleven-year-old has exceptional thoughts, but can’t share them” (Eleven.) When Rachel’s teacher insists and is confident that an ugly red sweater was Rachel’s and then demanded Rachel to put the filthy sweater on. Rachel has the knowledge to speak up, but doesn’t to show respect and to be the bigger person. At the same time, Rachel is not confident enough to admit her wisdom. “ What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you are eleven you are also, ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one” (Eleven.) This shows how she identifies the past and present years as they come and go, and notices that all your previous years are always still inside you. “ Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next” (Eleven.) The result of Rachel’s actions was frustrating due to Mrs. Price being immature about the sweater situation, leaving Rachel humiliated in front of the whole class. Until a girl named Phyllis Lopez at the end of the class said the sweater was her. Soon, Rachel realizes, that it was too late to celebrate her birthday. “ Today I’m eleven. There is a cake Mama’s making for tonight and when Papa comes home from work, we’ll eat it. There’ll be candles and presents and everybody will sing happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too

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Turning points can challenge your life at times. It can make your life better or worse. This idea comes up in Hatchet, a fiction by Gary Paulsen, Guts, a non-fiction by Gary Paulsen, and Island of the Blue dolphins, a fiction by scott o’dell. These stories all have turning points that affect them in the same way, doing so, they change their lives and things around them.

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On page 151 Of “Eleven” Rachel also feels deep emotion after putting a red sweater on. “That’s when everything I’ve been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets

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Eleven by Sandra Cisneros is a story about how a girl named Rachel gets accused of owning the ugly sweater that's been sitting in the coat area for a long time. It shows how the sweater makes Rachel uncomfortable and physically pains her to put it in. The story uses literary devices to show Rachels's complex reaction to the event that happened in her class with the red sweater. One literary device used in simile is when she explains how awful the sweater is “I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese”. Cottage cheese is known to be terrible smelling so it further represents how terrible the sweater is and how much Rachel hates it.

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This is shown when Rachel puts on the sweater and thinks, “this is when I wish I wasn’t eleven, because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of

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In her essay, Eleven, Sandra Cisneros narrates the story of Rachel’s ruined eleventh birthday. Cisneros uses this to characterize Rachel as insecure about her age, shy and sensitive, especially when talking to adults, and intelligent, as shown in her description of the different ages people have within them and how they act can be attributed to them feeling a certain age. This is done through the use of figurative language, syntax, and diction. Rachel’s insecurity in regards to her age can be seen in her incident with Mrs. Price, during which she says, “I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box”(Cisneros, 29-30).

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