Literary devices may be used to add more dimension and description to writing, but they can also show multiple characters’ perspectives, too. These perspectives can portray insights on characters that show true personalities. In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, certain examples of literary devices are strategically used to do so. The story includes different vignettes that guides through the main character’s, Esperanza’s life. Each vignette illuminates Esperanza’s problems and outlooks about race, gender, economic status, age, and society as a whole. Using a variety of literary devices, such as figurative language, sensory details, comparisons, and allusions, Cisneros truly displays disparate characters’ perspectives about themselves …show more content…
One example is when she talks to Alicia about their homes. Before they talk, Esperanza states that Alicia gave Esperanza a bag with the “word GUADALAJARA stitched onto it, which is home for Alicia, and one day she will go back there” (106). Here, Esperanza contrasts her temporary home with Alicia’s permanent one. While Alicia has an actual home where she can live for the rest of her life; Esperanza doesn’t and continuously moves to her different “homes”. By comparing her home, she is implying that she wants a home where she can settle and be happy, not like the one on Mango Street. This ultimately shows that she’s not satisfied with her current lifestyle and wants for a better life. Another comparison is when she compares her age and gender with an older man. In the vignette “The First Job”, she lands a job at a photo developer studio where she hides from the other men and women at lunch time because she is scared of them looking at her. Subsequently, she meets a man who says it’s his birthday and asks for a tiny birthday kiss, and she thinks “I thought I would just because he was so old… he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth” (55). Here, Esperanza compares her age and gender with the actions that the older man does. She is working a normal day, then randomly a guy comes up and kisses her directly, without her consent. By showing this example of an old man in the workplace, she is basically stating men, especially older ones, are dangerous by sexually harassing young women such as herself. This means that she doesn’t visualize men as people who she will marry and live a happy life with, but people who are filled with evil. Through comparing and contrasting Esperanza with other characters, a deeper sense of understanding of Esperanza is
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, by Sandra Cisernos, the main character, Esperanza, goes from having a negative outlook on life to a positive one. Many difficult situations Esperanza faces show her changing perspective on the world around her. An example of Esperanza’s negativity is her feelings towards her home. Esperanza and her family move into a new house, on the not-so perfect, Mango Street. Esperanza has this dream of a “...white [house] with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence” (70), but, “The house on Mango Street isn’t it” (73). The home she lives in is described as being “...small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in” (49).
Hook: In the coming-of-age novel, House on Mango Street, the main character Esperanza narrates the story through her perspective of the situations she encounters as she grows older in her new neighborhood.
These are the seven metaphors in The house on Mango Street I found the most effective. “It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath,” page 4. By personifying the house and describing it as holding its breath, it gives you an idea on how cramped it was. “Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor,” page 9. Esperanza is lonely because she doesn’t have a best friend and feels like she’s tied down by her siblings. “At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth,” page 11. This describes the struggle of having a foreign sounding name in the United States that most people can’t pronounce. “It’s like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck shadows and in our bones,” page 20. This describes how music can feel bigger than sound and you can
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
Marin said that “she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house faraway.” (Cisneros,26-27) This mean she will change her life with man not her own. In this story’s background society is woman should work in a house and man should go outside and make money so this is like man should protect woman. Also, another character that similar with Marin is Rafaela. She is beautiful so her husband didn’t let her go outside of her house. Then, she never left outside and she just look outside through the window. This can be said that women rely on men and leave all responsibilities for men. In the past, this thought, same as them is very normal but as time passes, most people agree for gender equality. Then, literally, gender is being equal. But, Esperanza thought that woman should live in recognition of these thoughts and consider them after she met normal woman in that
In life many people set goals for themselves. For some people it maybe a goal such as obtaining a high test grade and for others it maybe to one day own a race car. Everybody has a different outlook on life and everyone has different goals in which they one day hope to achieve. The people who achieve their goals are those who are motivated and determined to do so. When these goals are achieved it is then when you are a hero to yourself.
“I want to be like the waves on the sea, like the clouds in the wind, but I’m me. One day I’ll jump out of my skin. I’ll shake the sky like a hundred violins” (60). In the story “The House on Mango Street”, the author Sandra Cisneros uses sentences full of imagery, metaphors, and word games, to show how self definition is a result of the people and places surrounding you. This is represented throughout the book when Esperanza wants to change her name, living in a male dominated society, and when she wishes for a new home.
The book I read was “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros. There was many themes in this book. The two I want to focus on are Loss of Innocence and The Power of Words.
Often in literature, authors create plot by writing about characters maturing throughout the story. One work that explores childhood to adulthood is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In this novella, Esperanza Cordero is a young girl who lives in a poverty stricken area in Chicago. During the story, Esperanza grows up from being an adolescent to a young adult. In the novella, the theme is that losing innocence brings about maturity. Cisneros expresses Esperanza growing up by juxtaposing vignettes. Tone is also used to enhance the change in Esperanza’s thoughts while maturing. Both the juxtaposition of vignettes and tone support the theme that the loss of innocence and the gaining of
In The House on Mango Street, the vignette “The Family of Little Feet” first seems like a random story, and is often disregarded, overlooked, and labeled “insignificant” because the story is oriented around three pairs of high-heeled shoes that arealmost immediately thrown away. As a result, seems like an arbitrary story that isn’t connected with the other vignettes. However, after careful reading, the story is relevant to the story since the shoes are a symbol that helps us further understand the characters and develops a theme.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a coming of age novel of a young Mexican-American girl developing in a working class Chicago neighborhood. The author is much like the main character Esperanza in many different ways. One being that Cisneros was also a Mexican-American girl growing up in a Chicago working class neighborhood. Esperanza is a foil of Cisneros’ beliefs and opinions of her Mexican culture and heritage. While Esperanza is embarrassed of being a Mexican-American around white Americans, Cisneros is proud to be a Mexican-American girl. In Sara Rimer’s article, “San Antonio Journal; Novelist’s Purple
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros uses many rhetorical devices to push her viewpoint of how sexual maturity and individuality come with age and experience. Cisneros’ effective use of symbols, syntax, and tone convey and persuade Esperanza’s upbringing.
In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, a little girl from a Latino heritage is given birth to. Not literally, but in the sense of characterization. Esperanza is a fictional character made up by Cisneros to bring about sensitive, alert, and rich literature. She is the protagonist in the novel and is used to depict a female’s life growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Cisneros creates the illusion that Esperanza is a real human being to communicate the struggles of growing up as a Latina immigrant in a modern world, by giving her a name, elaborating her thoughts and feelings, and illustrating her growth as a person through major events.
Everyone has challenges in their life, their feelings behind their actions make them who they are. In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros there are many conflicts which explore the characters, to get to know them closer. The internal conflict is used to discover the identity of the main character, Esperanza.