Analysis Of The House On Mango Street

All the people on Mango Street were struggling to get by, but they seemed satisfied with just making it. Esperanza was not. There were characters like Esperanza’s mother who was a “smart cookie,” and could’ve been anything, but she let shame get the best of her and dropped out of school. There was also Rafaela who got married before the 8th grade just so she could move into her own house, but her husband never let her leave the house afterward. He never let her see her friends, and the highlight of her week was getting coconut or papaya juice from someone who would send it up in a paper bag attached to a clothespin since she couldn’t leave the house. Lastly, there was the time when she was left stranded by the tilt-a- whirl waiting for a friend that never came back and got molested by a group of boys. The only witnesses were the red clown statues that seemed to be laughing at her. Nevertheless, she let none of this stopped her from going forward and perusing her dream. She still seemed to be struggling with a sense of belonging, but maybe that’s because she didn’t.

This elucidates how the figurative language builds Esperanza's character because it helps the reader better understand her views on life. It explains how she feels about herself and future; she wants to free with no one controlling her to go where she wishes and free of other burdens weighing her down. This also proves that Esperanza feels like she does not have a lot of freedom and opportunities because if she already had freedom, she would not write a poem about it. This is not the only example of figurative language that Cisneros adds into the book. Later, Esperanza explains how she is an ugly daughter and how her mom says that she will become more ladylike as she gets older, and men will start to like her.

In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros creates the theme that when a young girl is growing up without role models and a community that doesn’t support her development, she will have uncertainty in her identity and will search for her way out of the endless cycle. Cisneros does this through the main character, Esperanza. Cisneros creatively weaves the uncertain identity though many of the vignettes, but the vignettes that have the strongest meaning are number one and four. In vignette one, “The House on Mango Street,” Esperanza describes the places that she’s lived before

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

One of the literary devices Cisneros uses well in THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET is imagery. It is used to represent something that is sometimes complicated to talk about in a more beautiful and understandable way. In THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, Cisneros writes, “My hair is lazy”(p.6). Literally, hair cannot be lazy, however the adjective takes place to represent long, falling, and soft hair. My second, but not less important, is “Yup, she said disgusted, stirring again. I was a smart cookie then” (p. 91). In there, and during most of the vignette, Esperanza’s mother talks about her life when she was young; before she married. Then she was a good student, at least until she stopped studying because she

In conclusion, we know that Esperanza’s negativity of herself begins to slowly change as she slowly experience what accepting means and how she began to accept where she was from . Throughout this book, Cisnero showed us accepting is an important part of growing in life as well as determining the true you. In the beginning she hated her life always wanted to escape out of Mango Street versus the end she says she is going to come back. From the beginning to the end, Esperanza finally accepted where she was from and how Mango Street has developed who she became

Esperanza is able to look at her great grandmother and realize what she does not want to become, but also she realizes what she does want: to become a strong, independent woman.

A poignant figure in Esperanza’s life is her own grandmother. In fact, Esperanza was given her birth name after her grandmother. A touching gesture that came from good faith. A name may have some value, but for Esperanza there was a high intrinsic quality to such a simple component. Despite, never encountering her own grandmother in person, Esperanza was grateful to have fond memories by carrying her legacy through her name. Life’s motto concerns dealing with adversity and carrying the legacy of one’s family eternally. Being confident and smart was the only way to live by. No man was needed to help raise and nurture herself. Her grandmother instilled in Esperanza a sense of fortitude and independence. It is sad that a regret of Esperanza is linked to her grandmother, further illustrating the physical and mental hardships one can endure in

The House on Mango Street is a bildungsroman about a young Latina girl, named Esperanza Cordero, who has various struggles while she is searching to determine who she is and where she belongs in this world. The author, Sandra Cisneros, addresses several themes in the book of which three are significant; language barrier, self discovery, and gender roles.

Esperanza is the strong-willed main character who wants to break free from the limitations and expectations of a women set by her community. Unlike majority of the women in her neighborhood, she dreams of her escape from this discriminatory treatment. As she blossoms from a young girl to a mature women, she comes to the realization that she can never escape, because that house on Mango Street is a part of her. She can only learn from her experience living her never flee from it. When Esperanza creates creates an original piece of poetry, she shares it with Aunt Lupe, who in return, shares some insightful advice. (60-61) Writing through all forms can allow people to escape the realities and bounds of life.

Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street tells the story of a young, teenage, Latina girl named Esperanza, living in the late twentieth century. Esperanza takes her readers through her life and adventures through each chapter of the novella where each time she learns something. She faces the troubles of racism, friendship, and strange neighborhoods and most importantly, figuring out how she wants to spend her life. Through her race and wealth, Esperanza has created her identity as a shy, poor, and ambitious person.

Cisneros’ uses Esperanza growing up as a way to show people that even young children fall into noticeable gender roles in one’s community. Esperanza is girl who lives in a poor Spanish community. She resides in a tiny house with her Mother, Father, two brothers, and little sisters. Esperanza is an intelligent young lady who is very aware of the gender roles that are present in her community. Esperanza notes that, “The boys and girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours. My brothers for example. They've got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can't be seen talking to girls.” (8)Esperanza’s realization illuminates the fact that she is aware of gender barriers as a

In the novel, The House on Mango Street, the author, Sandra Cisneros, writes powerful vignettes inspired by her own life experiences. Like Cisneros, Esperanza, the main character and narrator, is born into poverty and struggles to fit into, and accept, her environment. This allows the author to convey the message that people can succeed no matter what obstacles they may face. For Esperanza, poor circumstances in her life empower her to strive for more than what she was born into. Cisneros productively illustrates Esperanza’s motivation as an outcome of her previous, and current, obstacles in life .

Sandra Cisneros’s, The House on Mango Street, depicts the coming of age story of a young Mexican American girl, Esperanza Cordero, through several vignettes that are narrated in present tense. The overall intimate tone of the novel holds the protagonist, Esperanza, close to the reader through descriptive situations and characters that are predominant to Esperanza’s physical and emotional growth in Chicago. Although many of the characters are not consistently present throughout the novel, they guide as modest roles that are significantly interrelated into Esperanza’s hope for a better life. In the short vignette, “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark”, Cisneros introduces Esperanza’s transition from childhood to adulthood through the use of

Objects, events, and phases all define a person. When a person is put through social experiences, that is what develops their traits as well as influences or inspires them as an individual. Esperanza is a key example of this, she develops immensely as a person throughout the book, finding who she truly is as a person. As she progress she develops a greater understanding for things like how she refers back the house on mango street “The house I belong but do not belong to”. She realizes that if she leaves things will be different for her and the community.