As Haim Ginott once said, "The search for a personal identity is the life task of a teenager." In every child's life they come to a point where they feel unsure about who they truly are as a person. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros uses young protagonist, Esperanza, to explore the struggle many adolescents endure in finding their identity within both their culture and true self. The book focuses on Esperanza, a coming of age young Mexican girl and the experiences of establishing both a cultural and independent identity in the face of oppression. As Esperanza watches the others on Mango Street she compares herself to them, and by writing down all that she notices she is given power to shape her confident self-identity through her …show more content…
stories. In the start of the novel Esperanza's family moves to a small house on Mango Street, a poor Mexican populated area of Chicago.
She begins by expressing her resentment for moving into the neighborhood, referring to her new home as "the house I belonged in but do not belong to,” (Cisneros 70) and her disassociation towards the other Hispanic people. She feels as though she does not belong and struggles to relate to those around her. She seeks friendships with the type of people she wishes to identify with rather than those genuinely similar to her. Her first friendship ends in rejection as Cathy expresses to Esperanza that she is moving away because, as Cathy states "this neighborhood is getting bad" (Cisneros 18). By this she means that more poor people like Esperanza are moving in. However, she soon finds friendship in two girls named Lucy and Rachel who live much more similar lives and give Esperanza people to relate to in the town she feels so disconnected …show more content…
from. As the novel continues and Esperanza grows she identifies the prejudice that the "outsiders" feel towards her community. In the vignette "Those Who Don't" she writes "Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake." (Cisneros 22). In this quote it is shown Esperanza understands that her neighborhood is viewed as scary to unknowing, close-minded outsiders. However, she counters that by stating how the neighborhood children know these "scary" people personally and know there is nothing to be afraid of. Esperanza takes comfort in knowing that the others in her neighborhood do not judge her and her family like those outside of it; she mentions that they are “all brown all around, we are safe” (Cisneros 22) suggesting that racial familiarity keeps her safe in her own neighborhood. This feeling of comfort helps to establish her identity as a Latina as she builds a connection with Mango Street and the residents. In the final set of vignettes Esperanza experiences the most change and development of her own identity as she watches the other women on Mango Street.
After she meets with her Aunt Lupe she begins to use her writing as a vessel for growing as a person. Lupe connects Esperanza’s love of writing with her desire to leave Mango Street. She notices how frequently Esperanza mentions her desires of becoming her own person and finding freedom and tells her "You must keep writing. It will keep you free," (Cisneros 40) meaning that Esperanza will find freedom and identity through pursuing her writing. With this new outlook she begins to watch the other woman on Mango Street and compare herself to them. She writes explicitly about 4 woman and what they teach her about who she is and wants to be. First, there is Mamacita. Mamacita speaks no English and is stuck in her house with no means to escape. Esperanza connects this inability to leave to the language barriers she cannot overcome and it helps to further Esperanza's newfound hypothesis that language leads to freedom. This advances her identity as a writer and the freedom and power she feels that writing brings to her. Next, there is Rafaela and Sally. Both women are held back by the oppression placed on them by their male partners. Esperanza pities them and expresses how she does not want to end up like them helping to establish her strong-willed independence. She claims she cannot live in a society where "a woman's place is
sleeping so she can wake up early with the tortilla star, the one that appears early just in time to rise and catch the hind legs hide behind the sink, beneath the four-clawed tub, under the swollen floorboards nobody fixes, in the corner of your eyes." (Cisneros 23) Finally, there is Minerva. Minerva has the most impact on Esperanza as she is so close in age and a fellow aspiring writer. However, she is married and in an abusive relationship that she cannot escape. Esperanza watches how miserable Minerva is and says that she must work hard, and quickly so that she does not end up like Minerva. These four women all help her to establish herself as a strong Latina woman who will not be held down by any man or gender roles. Overall, Esperanza finds her identity through the power writing gives her. In comparing herself to the other residents of Mango Street and growing a bond with the community she accepts herself for who she is and her desire to set herself apart from everyone dissipates. As a writer, she observes the nuances of the world in a way that gives her the identity she spends the novel searching for. Writing helps her to leave Mango Street emotionally while she cannot physically. When she writes, the words give her power to be more than a poor girl stuck on Mango Street. She becomes a vessel to tell the stories of the street others run from. She finds her identity as a voice for those who have been silenced by oppression
When Esperanza is struck by the realization that she is not accepted in society, she aspires to bring a more hospitable environment to fruition. At the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is questioned by a nun about where she lives. The condemning tone of the harridan shakes Esperanza, causing her to state, “There. I lived there… I knew then I had to have a house. A
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
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.
Reading is similar to looking into a mirror: audiences recognize themselves in the experiences and characters on the pages. They see the good, the bad, and are brought back to experiences they had overlooked to learn something more about themselves. Some characters touch readers so intimately that they inspire readers to be better than they already are. House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, follows a young girl named Esperanza and her experiences while living on Mango Street. She is introduced with her desperate wish to escape her poor mostly-Latino neighborhood and live in a house of her own. Esperanza compares herself to her family, innocently knowing what she wants from a young ages. She is observant and holds insights into the lives of others, learning lessons from each person she encounters. While
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is about a girl who struggles finding her true self. Esperanza sees the typical figures like Sally and Rafaela. There is also her neighbor Marin shows the “true” identity for women on Mango Street. She also sees her mother is and is not like that at the same time. The main struggle that Esperanza has is with beauty. This explains why most of the negative people that Esperanza meets on Mango Street, and her gender, helped her see the mold she needed to fill in order to give herself an identity.
Esperanza meets up with 3 elderly sisters at a wake. One of the older women affirms Esperanza’s secret wish to leave Mango Street, but makes her promise that she will come back one day. Esperanza tells Alicia that she feels like she doesn’t have a home but Alicia convinces her that like it or not that Mango Street is her home and no matter what she will have to come back to make Mango Street a better place because the mayor is
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.
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 was able to provide the audience with an image that was vivid of her surroundings through her diction and tone. Esperanza presents a series of stories that she deals with in her neighborhood as she grows up. Esperanza arose from poverty and always dreamt of having a house of her own. Sandra Cisneros' strong cultural and gender values have a tremendous influence on The House on Mango Street. Cisneros feels that the Mexican-American community is very abusive towards the treatment of women because men are seen as the powerful, strong figure.
“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.
In the House on Mango Street, Esperanza is very close to her neighbors and family members. Throughout Esperanza’s life, she has experienced death of a close friend or family. The first death Esperanza experienced was when one of her neighbors, Angel Vargas, died. Esperanza did not take Angel’s death too serious, but it made her
“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.
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....
In the next three chapters, Esperanza mentioned about her neighbors: the black old man owning a junk store who she had always been afraid to talk to; the Spanish guy- Meme- with a two-named sheepdog who moved into Cathy’s house after her family left the neighborhood; Louie’s Puerto Rican family living in the rented Meme’s basement apartment and his two cousins. The first four chapters demonstrated the heroine’s background with the desciptions about her family while from chapter 5 to 9, a geographical and cultural picture is shown, from both the past and and the present of Mango Street and the neighborhood. As the story flows on the descriptons of Esperanza’s neighbors, I expect to know more about them as well as others. And since the chapters are short and relies on fragments being connected loosly based on the narrator’s observation, I think the following chapters will still be written in the same way with gradual revolution of linking stories in a more logical
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).