Journal Four Part One: Cisneros response from Daniel

                                                                            Born Bad

    In this chapter it starts off by Esperanza recalling how her mother has told her she was born on a day that was deemed cursed or unlucky and how she "prays" for her. Esperanza goes on to ask for forgiveness for her friends Lucy and Rachel as well. She feels guilt and remorsefulness from a game of charades they had played earlier. Still to young to understand the concept of pain, suffering and death the girls laugh and joke as they make jesters about the dying aunt. Once she has passed guilt and remorse hit Esperanza, and she hopes they wont be punished for there disrespectful ways.

    The theme of this chapter is the cruel reality of someone dying a long painful death. How one moment they could be up and about doing every day things and with a blink of the eye reduced to nothing from a silent battle within. 

    Cisneros does an amazing job in this chapter of describing a person who was so colorful and full of life, and how easily disease and sickness turns so dark and cold. Esperanza recalls visiting her aunt and the unpleasant smells and filth surrounding her as she lied there, "like a little oyster, a little piece of meat on an open shell for us to look at"(60).