Where It All Goes Down
An Eleven Year Old's World
If you're anything like us, when you were eleven, your parents would drone on and on about this mystical and terrifying place called the Real World. And yes, the words were always spoken with capital letters.
Given our lack of real responsibilities and the abundance of playtime, as children, our worlds must not have seemed very real to our parents, even though they probably felt completely real to us. Of course, as time goes on and we get older, things start to get a little more serious. We start to take on bigger responsibilities, and learn to do things like stand up for ourselves and face our problems alone. But these changes don't happen overnight—they're all part of the process of growing up, which, as many of us know, is certainly not always a smooth and easy process. This is perfectly illustrated in the setting of "Eleven."
At its basic level, the story has two settings: Rachel's home and Rachel's classroom. Let's consider the home setting first.
Home Sweet Concept
What we found most interesting about Rachel's home is that it's an abstract concept. We don't doubt that it exists, but in the story, Rachel never goes home. She thinks about it, but that's it.
Consider this moment from the story:
Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you (12).
We know what will happen when Rachel goes home, but during the story, she never gets there.
It's always something that will be and never something that is.
It's also a happy something. Unlike the classroom setting—where she spends most of the story—the home represents a place where Rachel and her feelings are protected. In short, it represents the family, a family that would never spoil her special day with an ugly red sweater.
The Real World: the School Season
School represents a slice of the so-called Real World in this story—the world that is becoming a bigger part of Rachel's life with each passing year.
The other students are Rachel's peers, and their actions have real consequences for poor Rachel. When Sylvia Saldivar says the sweater belongs to Rachel, Mrs. Price believes her, and this act sets off the events that ruin Rachel's birthday.
Taking the analogy further, Mrs. Price is clearly Rachel's authority figure. No longer are Rachel's parents, and her parents alone, setting the rules. She must listen to what her authority figure ask of her or risk punishment. When Mrs. Price tells Rachel, "'You put that sweater on right now and no more nonsense,'" Rachel obeys (15). At home, she's an integral member of the family's life, but at school, she's just one of about thirty-some-odd students.
What's worse, Rachel does not feel old enough to handle the situation herself. She believes that if she were one hundred and two she would have known what to say to Mrs. Price, but since she's only barely eleven, she still exists in limbo between home (childhood) and society (adulthood).
Girl Meets World
Going back to our Real World analogy above, it's clear that Rachel's world is one of transition between the family and the social world. As Rachel moves further away from the comfort and support of her home, she enters the colder, less supportive world of society.
Sure, she's still eleven, and she'll probably go home to her loving and supportive parents, but she is already moving beyond the home's power to heal. This is evident by the fact that the home is not a physical setting in the story, and when she thinks to herself that "it's too late" for comforting thoughts of home to save the day (21). And that's a total drag.
The red sweater may seem like a simple thing. It's certainly not as important as paychecks, deadlines, car repairs, or any of the other aspects of an adult's Real World, right? Sure. But while the far-reaching effects might smaller, the principle is the same.