The House on Mango Street - Fantasy vs. Reality
Sometime in our lives, we have wished for things we don't have. No
matter how hard we wished on the star or a candle, our wishes never seemed to be
answered. We have all felt that bitter disappointment on Christmas morning when
we finally realized that we were never going to be able to have what we want.
This is the same exact feelings that the characters in Cisneros' The House on
Mango Street. Unlike us, the disappointment for these characters last
throughout their childhood. Esperanza, Rachel, Nenny, Sally, and Lucy are among
the kids growing up on Mango Street. They all long for friendship, love, and a
better life, but all these kids face are the harsh reality of the "real world."
In the society that Esperanza and her friends live in, love takes a back seat
when it comes to relationships.
"Someday, I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my
secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain
them." These are the longing words of Esperanza. While growing up on Mango
Street, Esperanza finds herself in a community that she feels she doesn't belong
to. With all her heart, she longs for a true friend that she can tell her
dreams to and will understand her for it. These wishes seem easy enough to
grant, but Esperanza soon finds out that there is more to friendship. "If you
give me five dollars, I will be your friend forever." Esperanza discovers that
she can not have anything for nothing. Rachel and Lucy sure enough become her
friends, but only after she helped them pay for the bike. Esperanza never does
truly find a real friend who shares the same goal as she does because all the
friends she has have more problems than her. For instance, Sally was a friend
for whom Esperanza cared for. When Esperanza was raped, Sally was not there to
help her and when Esperanza tried to prevent Sally from making a mistake, Sally
told her to leave. All Esperanza wanted was a friendship that would help her
escape her life, but all she ended up with were friendships that reminded her of
her broken dreams because in her society nothing was given for free and the
people she was associated with didn't have the same goals as she did.
Another one of those broken dreams was the concept of love. Esperanza
was not the only one who longed for a man's endless love.
Life has been tough for the teenagers on the street, they all find out about the struggles of living in these cold hard streets. Barbara Haworth-Attard shows us life on the streets of the four main characters in her book theories of relativity. Living on the streets is tough, and these four kids found out the hard way. Most of them will be stuck on the streets forever such as amber, twitch, and Jenna, but Dylan might be able to make it out
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
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...
better life, but all these kids face are the harsh reality of the "real world."
“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.
Sandra Cisneros' strong cultural values greatly influence The House on Mango Street. Esperanza's life is the medium that Cisneros uses to bring the Latin community to her audience. The novel deals with the Catholic Church and its position in the Latin community. The deep family connection within the barrio also plays an important role in the novel. Esperanza's struggle to become a part of the world outside of Mango Street represents the desire many Chicanos have to grow beyond their neighborhoods.
Foreclosure in America has been a rising and prominent problem recently, and has destroyed many Americans hopes and dreams. Over 2.3 million homes were foreclosed in 2008, and an estimated four million homes will be foreclosed by the end of this year. Despite the efforts of many banks and lending companies, over half of homes will foreclose that have received their help. I believe that we have only started in the right direction in solving the foreclosure crisis. Giving money and lowering mortgage rates will help, but I believe we should find out why Americans are in this situation in the first place. We are being too stereotypical when we think the only reason someone is foreclosing is because of irresponsible payments or buying a home out of a person’s capabilities to pay for it. If we understand their situation, we will be better enabled to help and solve their crisis.
The frequency of foreclosure in our nation today is dangerously high. The strain from the recent economic downturn has put many families and individuals in a financial chokehold preventing them from being able to make their monthly mortgage payments. Consequently, many of these people feel they’ve punched a one-way ticket to foreclosure. With all these homes being foreclosed on, we face a very real crisis.
As mentioned above, dolphins are mammals, meaning they are warm-blooded animals and breathe oxygen. The Scholastic web site says that “Dolphins, like you and me, are mammals. They have teeth, are warm-blooded, have a four-chambered heart, and nurse their young from mammary glands. Dolphins also have hair, but not very much!” Additionally, they have eyes, a mouth, and live in families with a complex social structure. Unlike humans, they have no sense of smell. (Scholastic.) Many people may also wonder if dolphins sleep or not. They do, in fact, but not how most people may imagine. Dolphins have the ability to shut down one half of their brain to sleep while the other half of their brain keeps them slowly moving and surfacing for air. Once the first half is rested, they switch and the second half of their brain goes to sleep, as it were, and the first half is on duty. (MIT Sea Grant.) If the dolphin didn’t have this ability, it would surely drown with no oxygen to sustain it. This is but one of many fascinating characteristics of dolphins.
These kids were joining gangs just to be able to be like the blonde hair kid with pale skin.Throughout the book i could connect to their situation about being the new kid in a new country where everything was different. These kids were taught new holidays that seem strange for example Halloween. I had never had a Halloween until I arrived here. I never thought it was a real thing people in America did. In the book it explains how getting treats from strangers was not safe for the kids. Many parents had a fear that they wouldn't be safe to eat and many people didn't have enough money to buy candy and give it away to strangers coming up and knocking on their door. Parents in the book were afraid of their kids being outside because of what they had been through in their country. The parents wanted to have the kids isolated in the small apartment for their safety. I can kind of relate to this, my parents are really protective. They didn't want anything bad to happen to me. Although they didn't keep me in the house all the time, they stilled looked out for me when I was
to be an adventurer. The world interested her, to a great extent. I believe she should
Going green in the workplace is a new trend in business. In choosing to go green in the workplace you may be challenged by an elevated initial start-up costs, however savings earned from this investment will more than pay for those initial costs in the future. Many people see this as a controversial issue, and granted it does have its own unique set of pro and cons, but if a business makes careful choices going green can prove to be very rewarding. Companies are doing this to save money on energy expenses as well as deploying it as a means to help reduce the carbon foot-print they are leaving behind.
- How many of us have gotten our hopes up only to have them dashed?
Dolphins have been charming creatures to human for centuries. However, this popularity sometimes directly leads to cruel and barbaric ways to keep them in captivity. This condition change dolphins a lot. Although they are the same animals, there exist many differences in habits, living conditions and human effects on the dolphins in the wild and in SeaWorld, which will be illustrated as follows.
These boys can be recruited for the local gangs starting as early as ages eight or nine. Many do not have a good home life, so the familial bonds of gangs look appealing. By the age of nineteen about half of the boys we saw will be dead; they do not have a long life expectancy because of the intense poverty they live in, and the fact that gang initiation involves shooting a friend only adds to the death toll. I entered the kids’ school for the first time with this background in mind.