In Esperanza’s life, she learns to value friendship and other relationships along with her background and education, turning her into a well-rounded individual. In Esperanza's heart, for example, she values those around her and her relationships with them. In “Boys & Girls” Esperanza states, “Someday I will have a best friend all my own” (9). You can see her accomplish this in “Sally” when she says to Sally, “Sally, not since then, you don’t have a best friend to lean against the schoolyard fence with” (82). In this, she implies that she will be Sally’s best friend, following her heart in the process. However, Esperanza’s life is formed by more than people. It is also formed off of her foundation through school and education. She has been taught …show more content…
Because I didn’t have nice clothes. No clothes, but I had brains” prove that her parents instilled this belief in her at a young age. This belief leads to her biggest goal in life, to be successful and have the money to improve her state. However, she wants to do this while still being the girl who grew up on Mango Street and who people once looked down on. She expresses this in “Bums in the Attic”, “One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from” (87). Because of these goals and beliefs, the trees from “Four Skinny Trees” are a good symbol for Esperanza. She herself experiences many of the traits she gives the trees, “Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger” (74) and even goes as far as to compare herself to their trees in the ways she describes. Between everything in her life, Esperanza has learned to value others and success and therefore strives to achieve
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
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
In the story the house on mango street there are both young girls, Sally and Esperanza. Both girls desire adventure, love, and beauty. However, Sally is more outgoing and confident than Esperanza. She has confidence that she is beautiful. She play the role of a strong female that never get hurt by any boys. Esperanza admires and looks up to Sally. Esperanza does not want to be a "weak woman" and she sees Sally as her role model. Their home lives contrast also Ironically. Sally is physically abused by her father each time he catches her with a boy. On the other side Esperanza and her family communicates well. Sally sees her self as a women and not the type of women a person that isn't confident of herself and that's what Esperanza likes.
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 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 wishes she could change where she lives. Even though Esperanza moved to a nicer house, she still does not like the house on Mango Street. Esperanza’s parents made the house they were moving to seem luxurious. Upon arrival, Esperanza realized “the house of Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath” (4). Even though the house on Mango Street is an improvement, it is still not good enough for Esperanza. Esperanza says, “I knew I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t. the house on Mango Street isn’t it” (5). She dreams of one day having a bigger and better house. The new and improved house will be a place for others to come and stay, “some days after dinner, guests and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards will squeak upstairs. The attic grumble. Rats? They’ll ask. Bums I’ll say, and I’ll be happy” (87). Dreaming of moving to a new house not only gives Esperanza the feeling of control and independence, but makes her
Esperanza is constantly influenced by the women in her own family including her mother, sister and other various family members. Even early in the novel Esperanza recognizes that the boys hold more powers than the girl. She states “The boys and the girls live in different worlds” and how once outside of the house her brothers will not talk to the girls (10). Her brothers recognize that if the other boys in the neighborhood see them with their sisters, they will be mocked. This signals that Esperanza has internalized that the men hold more power even from an early age and her male siblings hold mor...
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.
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.
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.”
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 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.
Esperanza dreams of someday having a satisfying life. She doesn't want her path of freedom to be cleared by having a baby or finding a husband. She has no desires to fall into the trap of dependency. As the author writes, "Her power is her own. She will not give it away" (Cisneros 89).
They show a person's intentions and desires. Esperanza’s goals are clear and express a lot about her. One of her biggest goals was to have a phantasmagorical house, a real house. She states this when she mentions “I want a house on a hill like the ones with the gardens where Papa works” (Cisneros 86). This particular goal has made Esperanza dreamy and still containing hope, but also fear humiliation. A more humble goal was to have a boyfriend, notwithstanding this wasn't such a colossal goal, it was still important as it expressed her desires and her maturity. This is shown when she says “I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt” (Cisneros 73). Esperanza also develops a substantial goal throughout her time on Mango Street, she plans to help all the citizens of Mango Street accomplish their goals or at least have a better future, but she understands that first she must be the one to leave Mango Street so that one day she will be able to come back to make a