PART 1 -- SUMMARY: The House on Mango Street is a story about a young Chicana girl named Esperanza Cordero. The story encompasses a year in Esperanza’s life, as she and her family move into a house on Mango Street in the barrio, which is a Latino neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. Although this is the first house her parents have ever owned, not to mention a huge improvement from where they lived in the past, Esperanza forms immediate negative feelings towards their house on Mango Street. She feels that it is not a “real” house, like the one’s she has seen on TV or the ones her parents have talked about. Moving there becomes a battle for Esperanza, as she has to cope with being in a place that she feels she doesn’t belong. From the very beginning, …show more content…
she vows to herself that she will leave Mango street and following is when the lessons begin. After moving to the house, Esperanza quickly befriended two Chicana girls who lived across the street, Lucy and Rachel. The three of them plus Esperanza’s younger sister Nenny became close knit and spent a lot of time together. All between the ages of … and twelvce, the girls were on the brink of puberty, making them sexually vulnerable at times and they became very curious about things that had to do with boys. A young Puerto Rican women named Marin who lived with her cousin’s family in the same neighborhood as Esperanza taught her and her friends about the exciting topic of boys and the world of being a women. During the first half of the year that the book portrays, Esperanza was still comfortably basking in her youth, while simultaneously feeling ashamed of living in poverty. She developed a love for writing and a creative voice that helped her to escape from the realties of her situation living on Mango Street. Then the summer hit along with puberty, and Esperanza discovered a newfound sexual maturity. That inevitably changed the way that she viewed the world, her neighborhood in particular and she became intrigued with watching the older women around her. In doing so, her eyes were opened to all of the different women who were stuck in the situations they were in and she began to fear even more that she would be stuck on Mango Street forever. At the beginning of the following school year, Esperanza met a new girl her age named Sally. Sally was alot more sexually mature than most of the people she knew, conveniently timed seeing as Esperanza was becoming increasingly more intrigued by that realm at that particular point in the story. She was fascinated by Sally’s friendship for a little while, until Sally left her alone and a group of boys sexually assaulted Esperanza. Needless to say, their friendship ended. Esperanza’s progressive desire to break free from the walls of Mango Street and pave her own path, coupled with her life altering experiences as Sally’s friend, solidified her drive to not be like the women that she had observed in the neighborhood.
However, in the end, Esperanza comes to the realization that she cannot cut ties with Mango Street because it has influenced her dreams and personality in ways that she would not have discovered if it weren’t for that neighborhood and its residents. Although Esperanza struggled through her times on Mango Street, she emerged with a passion and a confidence for writing, and inevitably found that the beauty amidst dirty streets was really just finding her true …show more content…
self. PART 2 – CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS: The House on Mango Street depicts the life of Chicanos/Mexican-Americans, or Latinos and the cultural barriers that that have historically been covered up by demeaning stereotypes and created by internal ambivalence.
In some ways it resembles immigrant culture, but unlike Americans of Jewish culture or Indian culture, for example, Chicanos have been consistently excluded from the American mainstream. The author, Cisneros uses language as a recurring cultural barrier throughout the story. This barrier is shown immediately in the beginning of the story when Esperanza observes the people around her on Mango Street and realizes that if not knowing or not mastering the language creates powerlessness, then having the ability to manipulate language will give her power. After that Esperanza has the desire to change her name so that she can have power over her own identity. This action implies Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Variability and Esperanza puts to action individualism by valuing her independence and thinking in terms of “I” choices. Another cultural value that is strong among the Latinos is religion. This aspect of their lives in particular becomes a barrier in the book depicted through the Catholic church’s position in the Latino community. In chapter 18 “A Rice Sandwich” Esperanza wants to eat at the canteen for lunch but the nuns that work at the school insult her and make her cry by “…pointing to a row of three ugly flats, the one the raggedy men are ashamed to go into.
Yes…though I knew that wasn’t my house” (Cisneros 45). The fact that her victimizers were nuns made her feel even more ashamed of where she lived than she already was. Esperanza and her family come from a high context culture where they are used to messages that have most of the meaning implied in physical settings or as part of internalized beliefs, values and norms. People in these cultures are less governed by reason than by intuition or feelings. Things such as the speaker’s tone of voice, facial expression, gestures, postures make more impact than what they are actually saying. Consequently, entering into a different culture, Esperanza and her family have to adjust to most messages meanings being in the explicit code. High context cultures are relational, collectivist, intuitive, and contemplative, this means that people in these cultures emphasize interpersonal relationships. Which branches into another aspect of adjustment to the new culture of the area that Esperanza and her family moved to. For the most part, the people in this culture have weak people group bonds, while in Latino culture, people bonds are very strong and family is considered everything. In chapter 19 “Chanclas” Esperanza and her entire extended family celebrate the first communion of one of her cousins. The whole family comes together and they gather together in celebration eating, dancing and talking. Times like these point to key aspects of Esperanza’s background and where she comes from. The biggest cultural lessons in this story are those learned by Esperanza herself as she Struggles to fit the puzzle pieces of her identity; ethnicity, cultural inheritance, sexuality, gender and economic status into somewhat of a whole.
Esperanza, the main character of The House on Mango Street, a novella written by Sandra Cisneros in 1984, has always felt like she didn’t belong. Esperanza sought a different life than the ones that people around her were living. She wanted to be in control of her life, and not be taken away by men as so many others around her had. Esperanza wanted to move away from Mango Street and find the house, and life she had always looked for. Through the use of repetition, Sandra Cisneros conveys a sense of not belonging, that can make a person strong enough to aspire to a better life.
Esperanza sees all of the women around her, and most of them are the same. The overall idea of the women on Mango Street is they are property to their husbands. They cannot do anything unless their husbands allow them to. It also starts out at a young age. The young girls like Esperanza see the women that live around them and think that is the way to live. They admire them so they start to mature faster than they should. Sally is one of them. Sally loves the attention that she gets from boys, but her father does not like that. Sally grew up and got married at a young age.
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.
In The House on Mango Street, Cisneroz agitates the theme of diversity through her use of characters and setting. Cisneroz paints a multitude of events that follow a young girl named Esperanza growing up in the diverse section of Chicago. She is dealing with searching for a release from the low expectations that the Latino communities often put women whether young or old are put against. Cisneroz often draws from her life growing up that she was able to base Esperanza's life experiences on and portray an accurate view on Latino societies today. Cisneroz used the chapter “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and cruel” to portray Esperanzas growth from a young curious girl to a wise woman. She came into her own personal awareness and her actions that she has to now be held accountable for.
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.
“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.
Cisneros depicts Mango Street as a rough neighborhood, but she also conveys a sense of community. She writes down that “we are safe,” (Cisneros, 28) to indicate that she can find the sense of community. Even if the author does not think she belongs to Mango Street, she does not deny that her community lives there. At the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Cisneros states that “I had to have a house. A real house,” (Cisneros, 5) illustrating that after knowing the American society’s evaluation criteria of success, she wants to follow the upward mobility and be viewed as a successful figure not only because she wants to be appreciated but also because white people will change their stereotypes of Hispanic people if they see that a Hispanic woman can be as successful as other whites. Her ambition triggers her to want to explore the meaning of being a Hispanic girl in the real world. Furthermore, in the “My name” session, the author depicts her great-grandmother’s life. “She looked out the window her whole life… but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” (Cisneros, 11) Cisneros wants a marriage formed because of love, like most white people do; her desire indicates that she wants to live like the whites, so that they will respect her and the Hispanic race later. In addition, Cisneros points out that she
The House on Mango Street is the tale about a young girl named Esperanza who is maturing throughout the text. In it Esperanza documents the events and people who make up Mango Street. It is through this community that Esperanza’s ideas and concepts of the relationships between men and women are shaped. She provides detailed accounts about the oppression of women at not only the hands of men who make up Mango Street but also how the community contributes to this oppression. As the young girls and women of Mango Street try to navigate the world they must deal with a patriarchal society that seeks to keep them confined. By growing up in this environment where women are confined Esperanza seeks desperately to depart from Mango Street for fear
Although Esperanza is constantly reaffirming that she wants to move away from Mango Street, we know by the end novel that she will one day return to help those who will not have the opportunities Esperanza has had in her life. Indeed, in the closing pages Esperanza admits that she cannot escape Mango Street. She can never again call it home, but it has influenced her dreams, formed her personality, and she has learned valuable life lessons from its inhabitants. That is why, explains Esperanza, she tells stories about the house on Mango Street, revealing the beauty amidst dirty streets and unveiling her true inner self, the peace of knowing that her “home is where her heart is.”
Esperanza, a strong- willed girl who dreams big despite her surroundings and restrictions, is the main character in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza represents the females of her poor and impoverished neighborhood who wish to change and better themselves. She desires both sexuality and autonomy of marriage, hoping to break the typical life cycle of woman in her family and neighborhood. Throughout the novel, she goes through many different changes in search of identity and maturity, seeking self-reliance and interdependence, through insecure ideas such as owning her own house, instead of seeking comfort and in one’s self. Esperanza matures as she begins to see the difference. She evolves from an insecure girl to a mature young lady through her difficult life experiences and the people she comes across. It is through personal encounters and experiences that Esperanza begins to become sexually aware and acceptance her place and self-definition in her community.
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).
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.
In the Book women are looked upon as objects by men whether they are boyfriends, friends fathers or husbands. The girls in the novel grow up with the mentality that looks and appearance are the most important things to a woman. Cisneros also shows how Latino women are expected to be loyal to their husbands, and that a husband should have complete control of the relationship. Yet on the other hand, Cisneros describes the character Esperanza as being different. Even though she is born and raised in the same culture as the women around her, she is not happy with it, and knows that someday she will break free from its ties, because she is mentally strong and has a talent for telling stories. She comes back through her stories by showing the women that they can be independent and live their own lives. In a way this is Cinceros' way of coming back and giving back to the women in her community.
In class we read the book House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the main character Esperanza lives in a lower working class neighborhood and street called Mango Street dealing with poverty. Her house is an important symbol in House on Mango Street. It represents Eperanza’s process of maturing as a person and the change in her perspective of poverty and struggle being shameful, to it being something to embrace and use as motivation. This is a very important part of the story because it is in many aspects where we are from that make us who we become. This is interesting to see in the book as her opinions and perspective of things inside and outside of her neighborhood are shaped by her experiences.