House On Mango Street Figurative Language

687 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Societal problems affecting youths

Modern society believes in the difficult yet essential nature of coming of age. Adolescents must face difficult obstacles in life, whether it be familial, academic, or fiscal obstacles. In the House on Mango Street, Esperanza longs for a life where she will no longer be chained to Mango Street and aspires to escape. As Esperanza grows up on Mango Street, she witnesses the effect of poverty, violence, and loss of dreams on her friends and family, leading her to feel confused and broken, clinging to the dream of leaving Mango Street. Cisneros uses a reflective tone to argue that a change in one’s identity is inevitable, but ultimately for the worst. The author establishes a reflective tone throughout the House on Mango Street by using childish, …show more content…

Esperanza tries to be a good friend to Sally, but ends up appearing immature and silly. Esperanza feels shame, as she “wanted to be dead”, to “turn into the rain”, and have “my eyes melt into the ground like black snails” (Cisneros 97). With sensory-rich imagery, the author uses similes and metaphors to describe Esperanza’s feelings of utter mortification as she embarrasses herself in front of Sally. Esperanza becomes confused about her newfound sexuality and her loss of innocence when she begins acting strangely, yet awkwardly around boys. She doesn’t know whether to act like a child or an adult because although she wants to be mature and glamorous like Sally, and she gets exposed to the harsh nature of society. The disillusioned view of becoming mature and having boys notice her is especially realized by Esperanza when she gets raped at a carnival. Through detailed imagery, Cisneros describes the dirtiness of the boy, elaborating on “his dirty fingernails against my skin” and “his sour smell again” (Cisneros 100) and the confusion and anger from Esperanza. After this experience, Esperanza blames Sally instead for covering up the truth about boys and is heartbroken about the real truth of sexuality and men. It is clear that Esperanza vividly remembers this awful experience, and just reflecting on this experience causes her thoughts to

Show More
Related

  • House On Mango Street Symbols

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sally is the prettiest girl at Esperanza's school, and one of Esperanza's friends. She has pretty black suede shoes that Esperanza envies. What Esperanza really envies is Sally sexual maturity, which is why she wants the suede shoes. Her next story with Sally, “The Monkey Garden” continues to emphasize this symbol. Sally and Esperanza are at the neighborhood garden when Sally starts talking to some boys. They take her keys and tells Sally she has to kiss them to get them back. Sally agrees and Esperanza runs to an adult, who doesn't seem to care. Esperanza then grabs some large sticks and a brick to fight. “But when I got there Sally said go home. Those boys said leave us alone. I felt stupid with my brick. They all looked at me as if I was the one that was crazy”(pg 97). Esperanza doesn't understand what is going on, and runs to the other side of the garden. She cries herself to sleep under a tree. When she wakes up she ends the chapter saying “I looked at my feet in their white socks and ugly round shoes. They seemed far away. They didn't seem to be my feet anymore. And the garden that had been such a good place to play didn't seem mine either”(pg 98). Esperanza doesn't recognize her feet because those are the feet of a child, the child she used to be. This event is when Esperanza realizes that she can't play in the garden anymore, or be a child. She needs to grow up, mentally and

    Read More

  • Comparing The House On Mango Street And A Raisin In The Sun

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    She dreams about a young boy named Sire, a neighborhood boy who she always catches looking at her, and she starts to develop a small crush on him. Esperanza is told by her parents that he’s a punk and to not talk to him. “I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can’t see” (Cisneros 73). All Esperanza wants to do is leave her little red house with boarded up windows, and move into the house of her dreams. Not only is leaving her house a desire of hers, but also growing up and finding some place better, no matter where it is. Esperanza’s desires of getting older are stronger, but she’s also becoming more independent. She’s beginning her transition into young womanhood. Her fall of innocence occurs in the chapter called ‘Red Clowns’. In this chapter, she experiences something she’s never thought of going through before. This experience teaches Esperanza that she shouldn’t believe everything she hears, and the world is nothing like it is said to be in the books and magazines. I would say Esperanza, so you emphasize what she learned. She also learns that the world is not a perfect place either, but is full of many bitter things and

    Read More

  • House On Mango Street Belonging

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Entrapment In The House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The House on Mango Street” emphasizes on this issue, even broadens to explain other controversial matters such as abuse, misogynistic views, and stereotypes. The protagonist, Esperanza Cordero moves to Mango Street where she must witness the abuse affecting her friends, neighbors, and family. Either Sally a close friend, Mamacita a neighbor, or her own mother handling 4 children. Over the course of the novel Esperanza changes physically and mentally. Through the use of imagery as well as complex, descriptive vignettes Cisneros epitomizes the misogynistic views within Esperanza’s

    Read More

  • The House On Mango Street Coming Of Age Quotes

    486 Words  | 1 Pages

    The House on Mango Street is filled with beautiful and relatable stories that foretell the development of the main character. In Valdes’ review, she makes a strong analysis of how Cisneros creates “human presence that transcends the time, place, and condition of the composition to create a literary metaphor for a woman coming of age” (55). Valdes explains how Cisneros creates a “metaphor” in which she express and examines her feelings and emotions in an elegant way. Valdez also shows that Cisneros creates a setting in which shows the reader how to become free in a lonely environment that many young women, especially those who are a minority, can relate to when they are

    Read More

  • Esperanza's Adolescence In The House On Mango Street

    746 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cisneros uses descriptive words particularly well when she says, “At night Nenny and I can hear when Earl comes home from work. First the click and whine of the car door opening, then the scrape of concrete, the excited tinkling of dog tags, followed by the heavy jingling of keys, and finally the moan of the wooden door as it opens and lets loose its sigh of dampness” (71). The use of descriptive words in this passage gives readers a great mental image. It is easy to tell where Esperanza is and what she is experiencing. In this specific passage, Cisneros uses words that correspond with human senses. This keeps readers engaged in the book and keeps them reading. Imagery in this book helps readers know what Esperanza is going

    Read More

  • Diversity In The House On Mango Street

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Importance of the Monkey Garden in The House on Mango Street

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Esperanza's overwhelmed tone reveals her fear and doggedness to adversity when sally's game defiles the garden's innocence/purity, exposing Esperanza to the realization that she cannot remain a kid forever.

    Read More

  • The House On Mango Street Literary Elements

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    The short story, “The House on Mango Street” is a fiction writing focused on a family as they move from house to house. The story is written by Sandra Cisneros. This paper will focus on three literacy elements that are significant in “The House on Mango Street.” Literacy elements are important, in fiction writing, because the different components allow the author to become more creative within their writing. The first literacy element that will discussed in this paper is the point of view, the second element will be the theme, and the last element will describe important symbolism throughout the story.

    Read More

  • Beauty in The House on Mango Street

    927 Words  | 2 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Identity Role in Pursuing the American Dream

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • What a Home Really is in The House on Mango Street

    1236 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis of Esperanza in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    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....

    Read More

  • Essay On The House On Mango Street Lessons

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are multiple lessons we learn throughout the years we live, whether it be from a book or our friends and family. The book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, is the coming-of-age story of Esperanza Cordero who goes through the hero’s journey. Throughout Esperanza’s life of living on Mango Street, she discovers the many realities life has to offer. Esperanza learns that sexual attention is dangerous and unwanted, to not stop what she is doing if she feels like she does not belong, and some things in life are not what you expect it to be through her own experiences and the experience the people and things around her go through.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Body And The House On Mango Street

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    To begin with The House on Mango Street, this is a story told from the perspective of a girl, Esperanza, as she grows up and deals with the problems of living

    Read More

More about House On Mango Street Figurative Language

Open Document