Shattered Dreams in Stolen Party :: stolen

Shattered Dreams in Stolen Party In the story "Stolen Party" written by Liliana Heker, a girl’s dreams are shattered by the bitter reality of her destiny. Rosaura spends most of her time trying to convince her mother, as well as everyone at the birthday party, that being an educated girl makes her an equal to everyone at the party. She feels great determination to become a part of her friend Luciana’s lifestyle even though it would be rebelling against her mother’s wishes. Rosaura almost believes she has accomplished this feat until she is harshly brought back to reality and faced with her position in life once again. It will be an impossible struggle to overcome the class status that she was born into with the many factors against her. When Rosaura’s mother can tell her starry-eyed daughter who is full of hope and innocence that, "The problem with you, young lady, is that you like to fart higher than your ass" (Heker 1133), it creates a bitterness between them and damages the idea of Rosaura improving herself. The mother does not want Rosaura to go "the rich people’s party," perhaps due to fear that her daughter might experience the cold shoulder from the upper class, or perhaps out of fear that Rosaura might truly make it and leave the mother behind. The fact that this mother could have this incredibly mature conversation with her daughter "barely even nine," and that Rosaura could say to her mother "rich people go to heaven too," indicates the maturity of the daughter as well as her intelligence level that was already higher than her mother’s. Rosaura proceeds to tell her mother what a friend is. However despite her greatest efforts to make her mother understand, her mother continues to keep throwing negative thoughts and opinions at her. The next hindrance Rosaura experiences is at the party. She is confronted by a "high class" young girl who is the cousin of her friend Luciana. After numerous questions about who Rosaura was, the young girl tells her "you are not a friend of Luciana because I’m her cousin and I know all her friends" (1135). Rosaura maintained her ground through the slew of questions thrown at to her. Not until the question of how was she Luciana’s friend came up did Rosaura start to become defeated by her social class. Rosaura recited the line "my mother’s an employee," a face-saving but still revealing statement that had been instilled in her head (1135).