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The house on mango street analysis
House on mango street analysis essay
The house on mango street analysis
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One mark of great storytelling is the portrayal of characters’ development or metamorphose throughout the plot. All great literary characters gradually transform, for better or for worse, as their journey progresses. Sandra Cisneros’ novella, The House on Mango Street, centers around Esperanza Cordero, a young girl living in a poverty stricken area of Chicago. The story follows Esperanza’s thoughts through several vignettes, showing her maturation from adolescence to early adulthood. Through the change in tone and juxtaposing vignettes, Cisneros shows how maturity is derived from the loss of innocence and the gaining of knowledge. In The House on Mango Street, the theme of maturation through loss of innocence is based on Esperanza Cordero’s …show more content…
For example, in “The Monkey Garden,” Esperanza sees Sally being persuaded to kiss boys. She hopes to save sally from the boys but Sally is flirting and doesn’t want to be rescued. Esperanza doesn’t understand why they laugh like “it was a joke [she] didn’t get” (Cisneros 96). Here she is seen still as an innocent child, unable to understand the concept of flirting. But in the following vignette, “Red Clowns,” we see Esperanza lose this innocence when she is sexually abused at a carnival. She exclaims that she couldn’t make the man stop when he said, “I love you, Spanish girl, I love you, and pressed his sour mouth to [hers]” (Cisneros 100). The passages next to each other show Esperanza’s schoolyard innocence being torn away as she’s raped. By juxtaposing these stories, Cisneros heightens the contrast between innocence and …show more content…
After being laughed at by the boys and Sally in “Monkey Garden,” Esperanza feels very hurt. She says “I felt stupid… They all looked at me as if I was the one that was crazy and made me feel ashamed” (Cisneros 97). Esperanza’s tone is confused and she is clearly humiliated by how innocence blinds her from grasping the concept of flirting. She runs away to hide in the garden and cries wishing she were dead or melting into the ground, a reaction everyone experiences at some point during childhood. But then, in “Red Clown,” Esperanza takes on an angry tone. The whole passage is directed towards Sally. “Why did you leave me all alone? I waited my whole life. You’re a liar. They all lied” (Cisneros 100). Esperanza was mad because Sally abandoned her, leaving her vulnerable to her abuser. It’s clear how Esperanza has learned and has matured. As she loses her childlike innocence and gains understanding Esperanza begins to transform into a more mature character. Cisneros shows how a character will gain understanding and maturity when exposed to events that forever change their perspective. The House on Mango Street shows how Esperanza’s pure outlook on life gradually changes, becoming more realistic and sophisticated. Mentally transitioning into adulthood is an organic part of life that all readers can relate to. Loss of innocence through experience is inevitable and ultimately irreversible. However, these moments are
In the vignette During Sally’s time in Mango, she was approached by a few boys around the same age; they took her keys and stated that they would not give the keys back “unless she kissed [them]” (Cisneros p. 96). Furious at this statement Esperanza leaves to one of the boy’s mother and briefly summarizes the issue, sadly enough she asks “what do you want me to do” (Cisneros p. 97). Cisneros wants to convey that it is common for men to be contempt with women, especially young boys who look towards these men as role models. It is mandatory to present oneself in a respectful way to set a proper
However, each work is special and focuses on a different aspect of life as compared to the other. In addition, the thematic ideas between the two works are often correlated and often overlap between the two. Moreover, the multiple thematic ideas in the novel and the movie can still apply to the people of today as they also go through many hard times much like Celie and Esperanza. The House on Mango Street is able to focus on abuse of women, and discrimination of the female gender much like The Color Purple. However, The House on Mango Street is able to elaborate on the topic of maturity especially through the various experiences of Esperanza. Nevertheless, many important lessons can be learned from both the novel and the movie, among these include treatment of women, discrimination, and maturity. The novel and the movie do a wonderful job at emphasizing and focusing on these relatable topics that are vital to the growth of
“Someday, I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without me having to explain them” (9). These are the longing words spoken by Esperanza. In the novel The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is young girl experiencing adolescence not only longing for a place to fit in but also wanting to be beautiful. This becomes complicated as Esperanza becomes more sexually aware. Throughout the novel, Cisneros argues the importance of beauty and how Esperanza deals with beauty as a part of her identity. When Esperanza meets Sally a new friend, Esperanza’s whole world is turned upside down. Esperanza’s views on beauty change from a positive outlook to a negative one by watching how beauty has damaged Sally’s life.
Sandra Cisneros born on December 20, 1954 grew up in Chicago settling with a neighborhood known with Hispanic immigrants. Until then her migrating with her six brothers, from different communities in Chicago, and visiting her grandmother in Mexico, she has never really make ones home in. Being the only girl with no sisters, Cisneros only way that would deprive her from loneliness, is by reading books where she found her talents in writing. Fast forwarding to college Sandra Cisneros worked on her master’s degree at University of Iowa Writers Workshop where found her interest as Mexican-American woman with a self-reliant passion and how being a Hispanic were different in the American culture.
Sandra Cisneros' strong cultural values greatly influence The House on Mango Street. Esperanza's life is the medium that Cisneros uses to bring the Latin community to her audience. The novel deals with the Catholic Church and its position in the Latin community. The deep family connection within the barrio also plays an important role in the novel. Esperanza's struggle to become a part of the world outside of Mango Street represents the desire many Chicanos have to grow beyond their neighborhoods.
The House on Mango Street” is a novel that will take you in a journey but not just any journey, a one year journey of a twelve year old Chicana girl (Mexican-American girl) named Esperanza Cordero.The journey of Esperanza begins when she moves in to her new house on Mango Street with her family,going thru puberty,having her first crush,sexual assault,coming of age,maturity and it ends with her becoming more aware of all the things around her.This novel is a great book because in a way you can actually understand what she is going thru as she becomes a teen and is trying to accept who she and trying to find her own path to take.
In other words The House on Mango Street can be considered as an autobiographical, that is to say she may be her book’s protagonist Esperanza Cordero. then At the first sight of the title of Sandra Cisneros’s book, the word “House” might seem to be something that Cisneros gives a great importance, because throughout the books, the major responsibility of her displaced protagonist is a quest of a house similarly to her who feels displaced and homeless because of the frequent displacement she made from the United States and Mexico to visit her father’s parents, consequently the use of the theme responsibility by Sandra Cisneros takes back in away its origins from this
Esperanza is relying on her childhood to help her through life she feels like “a red balloon tied to an anchor” (9,1,3) This passage describes that Esperanza singles herself out for her differences instead of her similarities and she knows it. She also sees her differences as a source of her isolating herself. She floats in the sky for all of the rest of us to see, dangling from a string. Esperanza is longing on for an escape like a balloon similar to her experiences with our society. However against the face that Cisneroz gives her a light voice, doesn't mean that it's not just as strong and
It is common to read literature about a young protagonist that is searching to find themselves and trying to make sense of the world around them. This is something that all humans must learn how to do, given varies situations that make is increasingly difficult. This is a crucial concept in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, for this novella describes the struggle of a young Latina girl growing up and learning about the way it is. Cisneros brilliantly uses setting, style, point of view, and allusions in order to convey the themes of youth and identity.
At first, Esperanza is young, insecure, and immature. Her immaturity is apparent when she talks about her mom holding her, saying it is, “sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you and you feel safe” (Cisneros 6-7). This shows Esperanza’s insecurity because her mom is still a big comfort source to her. She feels a false sense of comfort because her mom is there and will protect her. In addition, Esperanza’s immaturity is shown through her dislike for outsiders of the neighborhood when she says, “They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake” (Cisneros 28). This indicates how defensive and protective Esperanza is towards her barrio by calling outsiders stupid for reacting the way they do, even though she dislikes Mango Street....
Steve Jobs once said “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” In The House on Mango Street, a novel by Sandra Cisneros, adolescent Esperanza as she reviews her neighbors with an naïve eye and tries to understand what is happening around her. As Steve Jobs said, Esperanza learns to follow her dreams and intuitions and not pass her power to control her future to men as many on Mango Street are influenced to do. Using vignettes, Cisneros explains Esperanza’s realizations about how gender
Esperanza's syntax reveals that innocence is irrevocable. Reminiscing of the Monkey Garden Esperanza "suppose[s], the reason why [they] went there" was because it was "Far away from where [their] mothers could find [them]"Cisneros (95). In the garden the kids were able to play without any adults around. The garden became a place of rejuvenation for Esperanza, where only kids were allowed and the horrors of the adult world remain unnoticed. Esperanza observes, "Things had a way of disappearing in the garden, as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory, it put them away and forgot them."(95). This shows that the garden was a place where things easily went unnoticed and it was not uncommon to loose things. For Esperanza, this represents the place where she is forced into her loss of childhood, and comparing this to a forgetful old man makes sense since when people mature they loose their innocence and childlike attributes. When the boys stole Sally's keys "they were all laughing" and "[Sally] was too" however, "It was a joke [Esperanza] didn't get"(96). The boys take advantage of Sally by stealing her keys so Sally seizes the opportunity to be able to flirt back with them.
Throughout The House on Mango Street Esperanza learns to resist the gender norms that are deeply imbedded in her community. The majority of the other female characters in the novel have internalized the male viewpoint and they believe that it is their husbands or fathers responsibility to care for them and make any crucial decisions for them. However, despite the influence of other female characters that are “immasculated”, according to Judith Fetterley, Esperanza’s experiences lead her to become a “resisting reader” in Fettereley’s terminology because she does not want to become like the women that she observes, stuck under a man’s authority. She desires to leave Mango Street and have a “home of her own” so that she will never be forced to depend on a man (Cisneros 108). During the course of the novel Esperanza eventually realizes that it is also her duty to go back to Mango Street “For the ones that cannot out”, or the women who do not challenge the norms (110). Esperanza eventually turns to her writing as a way to escape from her situation without having to marry a man that she would be forced to rely on like some of her friends do.
“Home is where the heart is.” In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a “home” really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and how we grow through our life experiences. In her personal, Cisneros depicts Esperanza Cordero’s coming-of-age through a series of vignettes about her family, neighborhood, and personalized dreams. Although the novel does not follow a traditional chronological pattern, a story emerges, nevertheless, of Esperanza’s search to discover the meaning of her life and her personal identity. The novel begins when the Cordero family moves into a new house, the first they have ever owned, on Mango Street in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza is disappointed by the “small and red” house “with tight steps in front and bricks crumbling in places” (5). It is not at all the dream-house her parents had always talked about, nor is it the house on a hill that Esperanza vows to one day own for herself. Despite its location in a rough neighborhood and difficult lifestyle, Mango Street is the place with which she identifies at this time in her life.
The idea of the alienated artist is very common in feminist works. Esperanza, the protagonist, is alienated from the rest of society in many ways. Her Latino neighborhood seems to be excluded from the rest of the world, while Esperanza is also separated from the other members of her community. Members of other cultures are afraid to enter the neighborhood because they believe it is dangerous. Esperanza seems to be the only one who refuses to just accept Mango Street, and she dreams of someday leaving it behind. She is considered an artist because she has an extremely creative imagination which creates a conflict with the type of liberal individuality she seeks. This creative "genius survives even under the most adverse conditions..." (Gagnier 137). To escape the pain of this division, Esperanza turns to writing. She says, "I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much" (Cisneros 110). Gagnier sees a "distinction of the writer who nonetheless sees herself as somehow different, separate..." (137).