Cisneros' The House on Mango Street Essay

up being driven mad by the guilt and she ends up taking her own life

And so life goes on for her, until she meets a couple of women that change her life around.

As a young girl, Esperanza is a young girl who looks at life from experience of living in poverty, where many do not question their experience. She is a shy, but very bright girl. She dreams of the perfect home, with beautiful flowers and a room for everyone. When she moves to the house of Mango Street, reality is so different than the dream. In this story, hope (Esperanza) sustains tragedy. The house she dreamed of was another on. It was one of her own. One where she did not have to share a bedroom with everyone. That included her mother, father and two siblings. The run down tiny house has "bricks crumbling in places". The one she dreamed of had a great big yard, trees and 'grass growing without a fence'. She did not want to abandon

She goes from a young girl to a young women. The first change was when she developed puberty. The first sign of puberty was when she started to realize the difference in her hips. Esperanza says, “ You gotta be able to know what to do with hips..You gotta know how to walk with hips.” (Cisneros 35) Esperanza also started to understand marriage and the concept of it that not all marriage will work. Her friend Sally got married at the end of eighth grade in order to escape her father’s house. Her marriage didn’t go as planned because, “Her husband does not allow her to talk on the telephone or have friends visit or even look out of the window.” (Sarbanes) This taught Esperanza that not everything in life will go the right way and that a person should think before their

She still has her money, but without a husband, she has no place in society and shuts herself away to escape the humiliation.

In her neighborhood there is a junk store where the shopkeeper will only turn the lights if you have the money to buy something. When she wanted to experience eating in the lunchroom, the lunch lady was so unpleasant to her that she cried. “One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I’ll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house”(87). This shows that Esperanza will be kind to those below her unlike the shopkeeper and the lunch lady. This makes her a kind hearted human being and that is part of who she is. Growing up in a poor Chicago neighborhood shaped Esperanza to be a kind, compassionate person who knows her worth and doesn’t judge people by sight.

to choose her husband and has to give up on her dreams. These two stories both disclose

help her husband become King. She says to the spirits “Unsex me” so she can obtain a more

She and her mom move to Colorado to join her dad in retirement and faces anti-semitism and dad’s murder.

Marxist Criticism is understanding the analysis between money, power, and social classes. This theory focuses on the poor and lower classes which deals with the roles of the social class and ideology (Shmoop). It is also the relationships among social classes that explains human activity in terms of distribution of economic power. The goal to use this literary theory is to identify the ideology and how that ideology supports the socioeconomic system (Brizee). Religion, race, ethnicity, and gender has a role to where there are differences in the social classes. To portray the differences between the upper, middle, and lower classes and their conflicts within each other, it is reflected in literature and other forms of expression that can tell people the struggles between these classes (Brizee).

that does not last very long, and she is forced to get a job and go to

builds a fence for her family and friends . Her fence is a symbol of love . She is still there to be

She becomes a replacement to a complete stranger’s previous wife. It’s implied that women are passed around like objects, and and that they’re all the same so they’re easily replaceable. Unfortunatly in today’s society men still tend to dominate things, even in ways that they don’t even realize. They’ll dominate a conversation by talking over, interrupting, or waiting for a woman to stop talking so he can talk without ever really listening to what she’s saying. In Things Fall Apart Women ultimately have no say in their fate in all aspects because men get to choose their partner(s) while women have no say on it.

Her mother was the love of her life, and now was gone forever. Was she going to have to live with a man she barely knew, or was there an alternative?

punished excoriatingly by the very systems designed to protect her and her children – for