"The Stolen Party" by Liliana Heker is a story that deals with social class, betrayal, and growing up.
In the story, a young girl named Rosaura is invited to the birthday party of her friend Luciana. Rosaura's mother immediately opposes her going, as she is the family's maid. She says, "It's a rich people's party. ...You know what you are to them? The maid's daughter, that's what."Rosaura is angry that her mother doesn't understand their friendship. It seems to her that her mother doesn't trust her to make her own decisions.
At the party, Rosaura has the time of her life, thinking that her mother was wrong about the family. In the meantime, Luciana's mother, Senora Ines, asks Rosaura to help her around the kitchen. She's very glad to help, feeling more special than the others. But then, when the party ends and the parents come to pick up their kids, Senora Ines offers Rosaura a gift. Not a pink gift bag for her attendance, but two bills as pay for her service. It is at this moment in the story when Rosaura realizes why her mother was so untrusting. It becomes clear to her that people really are as unforgiving and snobbish as she's heard. I think that when you are forced to deal with the evils of the world, you are also forced to mature from them. Rosaura has now seen that the social hierarchy her mother is so angered by is real.
Although this is where the story ends, I think that Rosaura and her mother would have a closer relationship after the incident with Senora Ines. Rosaura would realize that her mother just wanted to protect her, and her mother would feel bad she didn't protect her well enough. And because Senora Ines was cruel to Rosaura, she will keep more caution when dealing with rich people like her. This is both good and bad, because Rosaura will most likely develop the notion that all rich people are like Luciana's family. The story "The Stolen Party" definitely illustrates a lot of society's social class issues and the distrust between them.
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