This book report is composed for Samuel Jaja for Literature class. This report is based upon the book The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican-American author. The book contains a hundred and ten pages and was first published by Arte Público Press in 1984 and then republished by Vintage Contemporaries in 1991. It has been translated into various languages and is taught in schools across the United States. Since its publishment, the book has obtained critical acclaim, winning the American Book Award in 1985 given by the Before Columbus Foundation and selling over 2 million copies ultimately becoming a New York Times Bestseller.
The main character in the novel is a twelve-year-old, Mexican-American girl named Esperanza Cordero. Esperanza serves as both, the protagonist and the narrator of the story. She develops the most over the course of the book and tells everything from her perspective. The story centers on the main character and her new life on Mango Street, to which she moved in after living in multiple places before. She tries to find her identity in her new home, but she constantly expresses her desire to leave and struggles with her shame for being poor and her feelings of loneliness.
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Also, the main character’s younger brothers, Carlos and Kiki, and her younger sister, Nenny. As well as the main character’s best friends, Rachel and Lucy, that make an important role throughout the story as her loyal friends. Another important character is Sally, Esperanza’s sexually adventurous friend with whom she builds a tumultuous friendship. Also, Alicia, an older girl who befriends with Esperanza and serves as a role model for her. One more notable character is Aunt Lupe, the protagonist’s aunt that encourages her to keep writing, who suffers from a mysterious disease in the story and Esperanza and her friends make fun of Lupe, then she
The House on Mango Street, a fictional book written by Sandra Cisneros is a book filled with many hidden messages. The book revolves around a young girl named Esperanza who feels out of place with the life she has. She sees that the things around her don’t really add up. The story is told from Esperanza’s perspective and the events she goes through to find herself. Through the strategy of fragmenting sentences, Cisneros establishes that the sense of not belonging, creates a person’s individuality that makes them who they are.
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.
Esperanza is the heart and soul of this story. She changes and develops new habits over the course of the book. Because of how the book is written, she’s also the main character who gives the story it’s unity. Everything in the story is told in her perspective anyway so she could be the narrator and the protagonist. Even the stories about other characters have some sort of connection with Esperanza. She is The House On Mango Street, she is Esperanza.
Symbolism is the key to understanding Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street”. By unraveling the symbolism, the reader truly exposes the role of not only Latina women but women of any background. Esperanza, a girl from a Mexican background living in Chicago, writes down what she witnesses while growing up. As a result of her sheltered upbringing, Esperanza hardly comprehends the actions that take place around her, but what she did understand she wrote in her journal. Cisneros used this technique of the point of view of a child, to her advantage by giving the readers enough information of what is taking place on Mango Street so that they can gather the pieces of the puzzle a get the big picture.
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.
At the novel's end, Esperanza declares that she is too strong for Mango Street to keep her forever. What is the nature of her strength? How does Cisneros establish this characteristic elsewhere in the book?
Sandra Cisneros's writing style in the novel The House on Mango Street transcends two genres, poetry and the short story. The novel is written in a series of poetic vignettes that make it easy to read. These distinguishing attributes are combined to create the backbone of Cisneros's unique style and structure.
Women’s Escape into Misery Women’s need for male support and their husband’s constant degradation of them was a recurring theme in the book House on Mango Street. Many of Esperanza’s stories were about women’s dreams of marrying, the perfect husband and having the perfect family and home. Sally, Rafaela, and Minerva are women who gave me the impression of [damsel’s in distress].CLICHÉ, it’s ok though. It’s relevant They wished for a man to sweep them of their feet and rescue them from their present misery. These characters are inspiring and strong but they are unable to escape the repression of the surrounding environment. *Cisneros presents a rigid world in which they lived in, and left them no other hope but to get married. Esperanza, however, is a very tough girl who knows what she wants. She will keep dreaming and striving until she gets it. She says, "I am too strong for her [Mango Street] to keep me here" (110). Esperanza learned from all of these women that she was not going to be tied down. She said, "I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain" (88). **Especially after seeing that Sally was suffering so much. Sally’s father is making her want to leave home by beating her. Sally "said her mother rubs lard on the places were it hurts" (93). There is not enough lard in the world to be able to cure the pain within Sally’s heart. Sally, "met a marshmallow salesman at a school bazaar" (101). Pretty soon " sally got married, she has her house now, her pillowcases and her plates" (101). Her marriage seems to free her from her father, but in reality she has now stepped into a world of misery. This was supposed to help her heal; " she says she is in love, but I think she did it to escape." (101). Unlike the other women Sally has no escape, no poetry, not even papaya coconut juice, not to mention, " he does not let her look out the window" (102). That is why "she sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission."(102). Rafaela’s situation also involves imprisonment in her own home. Cisneros introduced us to Rafaela, a young beautiful girl whose expectations from marriage were to obtain a sweet home to live in. Instead...
In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, there is an emphasizes on how rough it is to be part of the low economic class . Through her words you can create an image about the way poverty affects children. She goes through the book making great remarks on the topic. The different experiences that Esperanza goes through have a lot to connect with her family's financial status. She specifically describes her feelings about the poverty they live in through three of her short stories. The three short stories in which poverty seems to be an obstacle are The House on Mango Street, Our Good Day, and Chanclas. When the book begins the downgrading of Esperanza's esteem begins with it.
In the society that Esperanza and her friends live in, love takes a back seat
“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.
Each part contains short stories within them. These all consist of a heartwarming girl, Esperanza,who matures into a woman and how she faces these gender roles through love and violence. Cisneros alters the name Esperanza with Chayo, Rachel, Lupe, Ines, and Clemenica, to explain differences between them along with to give the story more lewd effectiveness. Sandra Cisnero's main focus throughout the novel was identity. Cisneros starts off in the first section (“My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn), narrating as a young child and further matures into the final section (There was a Man, There was a Woman)....
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.
In the book The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros explains how a girl named Esperanza originally doesn’t appreciate what she has around her, but comes to realize what she has is valuable even though she still wants more. In the first chapter, “The House on Mango Street”, author Cisneros portrays Esperanza as an ungrateful girl, who does not appreciate what she has and wishes for a better, richer, life. In the beginning, Esperanza names all the previous places she has lived, showing the reader that her family moves frequently.
At the beginning of the story, Esperanza, the main character lives her life only looking at things from her own perspective. This is most prominently seen when Esperanza shows her house to one of the nuns from her school.