The Answer Part 1

I believe Sor Juana realizes she is extremely intelligent, but others downgrade her for it. She goes on and on about how much she loves learning and keeps trying to pursue an education, but towards the middle of the story she begins to put herself down. At first, she seems to take pride in knowing that she wants to get the best education possible and even takes the opportunity to attend classes behind her mother's back, but after she loses the excitement over her passion for learning. She begged her mom to send her to that specific University in Mexico City so she could study science, and when her mom refused to let her go she went anyways, on her own. Sor Juana knew of her intelligence and even stated how when she was only seven years old she already knew how to read, write, and sew, which was unusual for such a young girl to be educated in so many different areas. She wanted to attend the school so bad that she even pleaded to her mom to dress in her men's clothes, stressing the idea of how much she wanted this opportunity. Wanting to look like a man was one rhetorical device to make her point clear, but the main one was how she continued to cut her hair every time it grew. She chopped it off once the length was there was again as a form of punishment to herself. To me, its like she knew how smart she really was, but it was humiliating to herself because of what others thought of her intelligence as her being a woman, so she underestimated herself. She both pretended and caused herself to believe she had grown dumb, which she was not, and she even states, "Then I cut my hair right off to punish my dull-wittedness, for I did not think it reasonable that hair should cover a head that was so bare of facts" (p 51).
One quotation that really interested me was, "For as love itself is union, it admits no distant extremes" (p 59). I chose this quote because I do not quite understand what it means or what it is in resemblance of. She talks about experiences of life in community, nature, and how they work together to find happiness, but then she moves on to love. I believe Sor Juana is using love as an example in comparing it to a union to show how they work together to create happiness, just like community and nature does.
Another quotation that really caught my eye was, "But upon seeing so many and diverse crowns, I pondered which sort the crown given to Christ might be; and I think it must be the obsidional crown, which conferred the greatest honor and was called 'obsidional' from obsidio, which means 'siege'" (p 69). I chose this because throughout the whole letter Sor Juana continues to talk about God, the disciples, the Holy Mother, and Christ.  She relates her own stories to those of Moses and others from the Bible, so when she brings up crowns, it was in relation to how a crown would be fit for someone of such Holy power.