Compare And Contrast The House On Mango Street And Learning To Love America

1298 Words3 Pages

Americans often forget or overlook all of the reasons to be honored and thankful for that come along with being a citizen of the United States. “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros and the poem “Learning to Love America” by Shirley Geok-lin Lim. In the story “The House on Mango Street” the point of view is told by a first-person narrator just like in the poem “Learning to Love America.” “The House on Mango Street” has one main character (the narrator) and her five family members who consist of her Mama, Papa, her two brothers Carlos and Kiki, and her sister Nenny. I think Sandra Cisneros choose to add multiple characters so that the reader could get a good perspective of what it must be like to live like the narrator. “Learning to …show more content…

The setting in the poem “Learning to Love America” is in the United States in the state of California, inside the home of the narrator. I’m assuming it's somewhere near the coast because the narrator says “because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline, because the water of the ocean is cold, and because land is better than ocean” (Geok-lin Lim, 1108). I think this because I assume she would only know the temperature of the ocean if she were near it and would appreciate being on the land due to the coldness. This may indicate that she and her son travel via boat to America and had a long cold journey across the sea. Also because of this I’d also assume it’s either fall or winter in California at the time. I feel that the main character in “Learning to Love America” is more grateful for her life and the privileges she has lived in America as opposed to the main character in “The House on Mango Street”, though this could be due to the fact that the main character is not a native and is much older than the main character in “The House on Mango Street.” There are two themes of “The House on Mango Street” and “Learning to Love America” the first is to appreciate all that you have because there is always someone who has less than you and struggles

Open Document