The House on Mango Street is the tale about a young girl named Esperanza who is maturing throughout the text. In it Esperanza documents the events and people who make up Mango Street. It is through this community that Esperanza’s ideas and concepts of the relationships between men and women are shaped. She provides detailed accounts about the oppression of women at not only the hands of men who make up Mango Street but also how the community contributes to this oppression. As the young girls and women of Mango Street try to navigate the world they must deal with a patriarchal society that seeks to keep them confined. Sandra Cisneros’s vignettes demonstrate through Esperanza’s experience of growing up on Mango Street and witnessing the oppression
In today’s world there are countless social problems. People are often treated as an inferior or as if they are less important for many different reasons. In The House on Mango Street, the author Sandra Cisneros addresses these problems. Throughout the story Cisneros does a thorough job explaining and showing how these issues affect the public. This novel is written through the eyes of a young girl, Esperanza, growing up in a poor neighborhood where the lifestyles of the lower class are revealed. Cisneros points out that, in today’s society, the expectation of women and their treatment, discrimination based on poverty, and discrimination because of a person’s ethnicity are the major
In “The House on Mango Street”, the young daughter desires to leave her neighborhood as a way to escape her Mexican-American culture. One of the cultures which are most powerful in this story is the Hispanic culture that Esperanza and all of her neighbors emerge from. Her Hispanic culture has such a powerful influence on her
Sandra Cisneros has been criticized by many for her depiction of Mexican Americans in her novel The House on Mango Street. Critics claim that Cisneros portrayal of Mexican Americans sustains an image of negative stereotypes. Those negative stereotypes being men who are dominating over women and women who are submissive. Throughout Cisneros’ story we meet many characters who are portrayed as the critics claim – in a way that suggests the dominance men have over the home and the family. Despite this, I believe this representation is not ment to enhance those negative stereotypes, but to better heighten the feelings of oppression, otherness, and helplessness Esperanza has. One of the most prominent examples of the negative stereotypes being displayed
In Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s main goal is to one day have a house of her own that she can be proud of. Of course this is many people’s dream, but for Esperanza it means everything. It’s such a big deal to her because she’s ashamed of where she lives now, so she wants something better for herself in the future. While shame plays such a major role in the novel, this theme has received little attention from critics. Many critics focus mainly on how literacy and writing help Esperanza to find herself and to help her with her problems. In fact,
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, over a half million people are homeless in the United States. Although Sandra Cisneros, the author of The House on Mango Street, had a house, she felt like she was still homeless and contributed this feeling to the main character. In The House on Mango Street, a Latina girl named Esperanza talks about experiences and people that appear in her life while living in a worn down house in Chicago on Mango Street. Cisneros uses a variety of literary devices to highlight Esperanza’s perspective on herself and others around her. The literary devices being focused on are character comparisons, allusions, figurative language, and sensory detail.
In a series of vignettes, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, covers a year in the life of Esperanza, who is about twelve years old. During the year, she moves into a house on Mango Street. It is the first home her parents actually own, however she has had a plethora apartments in her life. However, the house is not what Esperanza has dreamed of, for the reason that it is run-down and cramped. For the duration of the vignettes, the readers watch Esperanza struggle but overall mature. In the rest of the vignettes, the readers receive a glimpse of the lives of the women on Mango Street. When reading the readers get to learn and understand these women. They are extremely important because they act as character foils to help the readers better understand Esperanza. During the novel, the women on Mango Street are confined and go through many struggles. The reader also learns about Esperanza's identity.
When passing through a poor neighborhood, have you ever thought, “this place is dangerous.” even though you just see what’s on the surface? The dirty buildings, run down stores, and unkempt roads persuade us to perceive that neighborhood in a negative light, but you might do this unconsciously because ever since we were young, socioeconomic status is what separates the “good”, from the “bad”. Sandra Cisneros’, House on Mango Street, shows us how harmful having a previous notion of a place or person can be. In the novel, we meet Esperanza Cordero, a girl whose parents never strived above the working class. Because of their low income, they are forced to move into neglected homes on the verge of crumbling, their final stop being Mango
In Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Cisneros uses metaphors to characterize the people and conditions on Mango Street. In Mango Street, poverty and gender inequality frequently hinder women from escaping Mango Street and the abusiveness of their households. Furthermore, Mango Street’s women often find themselves trapped in the expectations of marriage and subservience because society reduces their value to the basis of their beauty. Esperanza realizes the corruption of gender expectations unlike the other women of Mango Street however. Therefore, she refuses to subject herself to social standards and she decides to remain independent instead. Through metaphors, Cisneros characterizes the social standards of marriage that burden the women on Mango Street and she characterizes Esperanza’s determination to escape her circumstances.
Communities are meant to be a space of security in where community members help each other. In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza, a growing child feels the absence of the community’s help. Through a series of vignettes, Esperanza’s child-like voice reveals the dysfunctionality of the community. Esperanza doesn’t find anyone who she can rely on to help her through her coming of age. The situation is made especially difficult because of her Mexican-American heritage label. The ambiguity of her name presents a bi-cultural identity dilemma. Esperanza’s character represents what many female minorities experience, the lack of agency and solidarity their communities offer to them. The constant similes, through a child’s
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 .
In the novel The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, the protagonist Esperanza struggles growing up in the lower class of Chicago. Esperanza is in a critical period of her life where she transitions to becoming more of an adult, but she does not want to accept the world of the lower class she lives in. She feels she does not fit in or belong in her community and isn't sure why. Esperanza imagines about how one day she will be independent and not be reliant on any one for her needs. The character Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros’s novel The House On Mango Street reflects the theme of desire for a better life outside the lower class through her thoughts of not belonging and her fantasies of independence and wealth.
She was born in Chicago, Illinois. Cisneros grew up in a Latino family around the 1950s and 1960s. She had a Mexican father and Chicano mother. Cisneros was encouraged by her mother to read and was not insisted with spending all of her time performing classic “women’s work”. Cisneros welcomes her culture with open arms, but acknowledges the unjustness between the genders within. Having experience growing up in a poor neighborhood in a working class family while facing the difficulties created by racism, sexism, and her status, Esperanza longed to leave the barrio. Later, she finds her capability to succeed individually and find a “home with herself”; she worked to recreate some Chicano stereotypes for her community. Cisneros didn’t want to
“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros is a perfect example of feminist theory in literature in the twenty’s century. In “The House on Mango Street,” Sandra Cisneros pictures the lives on Mango Street. She shows us how differences between the roles of men and women in Esperanza’s life, and Latino women’s lives are influenced by the Spanish culture. She also lets
Exploring a concept so huge through the perspective of a little girl gives a powerful message to the readers about what girls have to go through. Each vignette tells a story the concept of sexism develops throughout. In the vignette “Boys and Girls” Cisneros begins to develop the idea of sexism by explaining that boys and girls are different and live in separate worlds. On the surface this story seems like Esperanza simply expressing her opinions on her siblings and how they're different from one another, however taking a closer look, Esperanza uses a powerful metaphor