Imagine being born into a rich, wealthy family, where your last name is respected and well-known by many. To say, living in a big, beautiful house and able to wear fancy silk dresses, so fortunate, that you have servants to cook and clean for you, and every year when it’s your birthday, it’s celebrated big, just as Esperanza Ortega did. Throughout the story of Esperanza Rising the author Pam Munoz Ryan ( 2013) illustrates an image to the reader of a young, rich, Mexican girl who is forced to mature and grow up much faster than expected. Correspondly, at the beginning of the book, Esperanza lives a rich life, to say, she had it “all,” but a sudden tragedy quickly changed her and her family’s life, whereas by the end of the story, Esperanza …show more content…
This bad circumstance really forces Anza to mature, likewise, she has no one else to help Mama, but her. With her mother being so ill she needs to pay for medicines and medical bills, but also wants to bring her Abuelita who was left behind because of health reasons, therefore, Anza wants to save money, showing she is becoming responsible and begins to contribute to helping her family, but not by force but by desire. Esperanza remembers the words her grandmother told her when she gave her the bundle of crocheting “ Finish this for me, Esperanza … and promise me you’ll take care of Mama” (p.161). This portrays that the character of Esperanza was willing to do whatever it takes to take care of her family as well as keeping her promise to her grandmother. Indeed, Anza knew that her staying home to cook, clean, and take care of the babies was a big help, but she also knew she needed to start earning money to be able to pay or bills and save for Abuelita, therefore, she knows she much work in the “campos.” Her determination can be illustrated in the following text “ I could work in the field or shed” [and] “ I am tall. I’ll wear my hair up. They won’t know” (p.166). This shows how determine she is, but also how much her character has grown and matured, and how much she is willing to help her
Esperanza is a young girl who struggles with feelings of loneliness and feeling that she doesn’t fit in because she is poor. She always wanted to fit in with the other kids and feel like she was one of them. She loves to write because it helps her feel better about herself writing about her life and her community. Writing helps her with
Esperanza begins her journal by stating where she has been and where she has temporarily ended at. When she finally moved with her family, Esperanza immediately realizes that her place in the world was not going to be in the “small and red”
In the poor slums of Chicago, a family living in poverty struggles to get by. In the book, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza is a twelve year old girl who lives with her family in the Windy City. She lives with her three siblings and both parents on Mango Street. Esperanza has no control over her life and family’s poverty. People who have no control over their life desperately seek change. Esperanza seeks to change her name, her home, and her destiny as a way to control her life.
Women are seen as failure and can’t strive without men in the Mexican-American community. In this novel you can see a cultural approach which examines a particular aspect of a culture and a gender studies approach which examines how literature either perpetuates or challenges gender stereotypes. Over and over, Esperanza battled with how people perceived her and how she wished to be perceived. In the beginning of the book, Esperanza speaks of all the times her family has moved from one place to another. “Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler.
Esperanza, the most liberated of the sisters, devoted her life to make other people’s lives better. She became a reporter and later on died while covering the Gulf Crisis. She returned home, to her family as a spirit. At first, she spoke through La Llorona, a messenger who informed La Loca that her sister has died. All her family members saw her. She appeared to her mother as a little girl who had a nightmare and went near to her mother for comfort. Caridad had conversations with her about politics and La Loca talked to her by the river behind their home.
Along the way, she will learn about Estevan and Esperanza’s heart-breaking background stories as well. These characters will journey on through life despite the hardships of immigration. The book shows the struggle that they should not have to
Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan, is a book about a wealthy girl, Esperanza, who must flee to the United States and serve as a farm worker after her house is burned and her father killed. Throughout her journey Esperanza meets many new people, most of them peasants, and is forced out of her comfortable life. Esperanza’s confrontations with class differences in Mexico, during her train journey, and in California, symbolize stages in her transformation from a privileged young girl to skilled and hard working young woman.
Esperanza Rising is a fiction novel about a young girl named Esperanza Ortega. The story first takes place in the mid 1920’s, years after the Mexican Revolution, on a ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Esperanza Ortega is from a wealthy family, as her father is an affluent landowner. However, Esperanza’s father is killed by outlaws who still remained resentful to landowners after the Mexican revolution ended. Thereafter, the Ortega family continues to experience more struggles which causes them to escape to California during the time of the Great Depression. Esperanza is faced with new challenges of a drastically different lifestyle full of manual labor, financial and economic hardship, and personal battles as she lives in a labor camp in California. As time passes, a situation occurs which puts Esperanza’s family in jeopardy, in doing so, Esperanza takes course in this new challenge to save her family.
In the book, Esperanza doesn’t want to follow the norms of the life around her; she wants to be independent. Esperanza states her independence by stating, “Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own,” (Cisneros 108.) The syntax of these sentences stick out and are not complete thoughts, yet they convey much meaning and establish Esperanza’s feeling of not belonging. Esperanza’s feeling of not belonging is also emphasized when her sisters tell her that the events of her life have made her who she is and that is something she can not get rid of. Her sisters explain that the things she has experienced made her who she is by saying, “You will always be esperanza. You will always be mango street. You can’t erase what you know” (105.) What her sisters are trying to tell her is that the past has changed her but it doesn’t have to be a negative thing; it can be used to make her a better person who is stronger and more independent. Esperanza realizes that the things around her don’t really add up to what she believes is right, which also conveys the sense of not
Even if you are rich, you have to go through bad news. Bad news comes in everyone’s life. In the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza used to be in Mexico living her happy and rich life. Her
Bad things can happen to good people and your life can get better are some of the greatest themes of Esperanza Rising. For example, in the last sentence of the novel, Esperanza tells Isabel, ”Do not ever be afraid to start over.”(253) This quote was almost the same statement Abuelita told Esperanza while crocheting a blanket, but Esperanza never thought she would turn back to it, until Papa died and sure enough, Esperanza didn’t want to start over. She held on to everything from her magnificent, princess-like life, especially her doll. She didn’t know her life would never be the same again, but after living in California for a while, she looked back at what Abuelita told her and learned to let go of her past, even giving her favorite, special doll from Papa, to Isabel. Papa’s death broke Esperanza to pieces, but when she moved to California she took a turn for the better because she learned a lot of everyday skills, such as sweeping, cleaning clothes, and how to work which benefitted her and she embraced her life and enjoyed everyday.
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....
Esperanza, a Chicano with three sisters and one brother, has had a dream of having her own things since she was ten years old. She lived in a one story flat that Esperanza thought was finally a "real house". Esperanza’s family was poor. Her father barely made enough money to make ends meet. Her mother, a homemaker, had no formal education because she had lacked the courage to rise above the shame of her poverty, and her escape was to quit school. Esperanza felt that she had the desire and courage to invent what she would become.
Many are confined in a marriage in which they are unhappy with, and are reductant to make a change. Some are committed to make a change for themselves. Esperanza ponders each one of these women's lives. Through each role model Esperanza gains crucial life lessons on how to overcome different life hardships. Through some women like her great-grandmother and Ruthie, Esperanza learns she must take control her fate, to avoid marrying young, and not let a male figure dictate her future. Other women like Alicia, Esperanza learns to keep pursuing goals in life and to take control of her destiny no matter what obstruction may lay ahead. From Esperanza’s role models, the moral lesson that can be taken away is to be proactive about your life and to shape your own future. Everyone is a role model to somebody in their life. Strive to leave a positive message behind for the ones shadowing in your
Esperanza is a very strong woman in herself. Her goals are not to forget her "reason for being" and "to grow despite the concrete" so as to achieve a freedom that's not separate from togetherness.