"Straw into Gold"

     In this week's blog, I have chosen to do it on Sandra Cisneros's autobiography, "Straw into Gold". The speaker, Sandra Cisneros begins the introductions to autobiography in France, while she is there to attend school. Cisneros puts much emphasis on her heritage since it is a great part of her life and background to many of her stories. We are able to understand this in her autobiography and as we read on we learn that although she her heritage is Mexican, she is in fact born in Chicago. Cisneros grew up in a family of six brothers and as a tradition she was expected to get married before she left the house, but instead she went against her culture and left in hopes of becoming a writer. In the end, Cisneros was successful and says in her autobiography that it was because of her parents why she was a successful writer. She inherited a sappy heart from her father and her intelligence from her mother.

     Cisneros focuses her introduction mainly on her successes and achievements. One of the examples she gives is when she was asked to cook corn tortillas. She had never cooked Mexican food before in her life, but she tried to do her best and didn't give up. She compares this experience to an allusion of a fairy tale. She's being asked to do the impossible, but in the end she becomes successful. Cisneros also compares to another time she had to write her MFA exam and had felt the same feeling that it is impossible, but in the end she had once again achieved success. Overall, Cisneros wrote about self-achievement and despite how impossible a task might seem, with a little hard work you can turn straw into gold. The subject of her story was her successes and the purpose was to show them to the reader, who is the audience. The occasion is her life and her tone is full of pride.