In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, interactions with different women impact Esperanza’s coming of age and lead her to a point in life where she is ready to move away and become independent. Through these women, Esperanza is faced with situations that inform her about the real world that she is about to experience. A negative example of this real world is set through Minerva who is not much older than Esperanza, is already tied down by being married and having two children. Minerva has transitioned into a life that she will never be able to escape because of male power that is put over her by her husband. Minerva fears that she is destined to follow in her mother’s footsteps. “Her mother raises her kids alone and it looks like …show more content…
For my project I decided to draw a picture of Esperanza’s dream house where she can go to write about her experiences on Mango Street. When I was drawing the picture of the house, I made the house to fit Esperanza’s dream of what will bring her happiness and an inspiration for her passions. This house acts as a safe place where she can write about her true emotions about Mango street. “I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. I write it down and Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free” (110). This chapter and project reveals Esperanza’s true feelings about Mango Street and how she can make use of those feelings. A deeper meaning that is explored in this chapter is that women do not need a man to be happy and productive because when Esperanza thinks about this house, a man is not in the picture.
Denial of Reality
In the chapter “What Sally Said,” Sandra Cisneros reveals the horrors of abuse through Sally’s experience. Sally, an innocent young girl not much older that Esperanza is faced with domestic abuse from her father in which there is no escape. Sandra Cisneros boldly makes the point that abuse was often a part of young girls lives. For my project I did a blackout poem which picks out the key important
Sandra Cisneros’ novel, “The House on Mango Street,” is about the adventures and ways of a small side street. We get to see how the main character, Esperanza grows and matures throughout her time on Mango Street. Since the book is written in first person, Esperanza expresses her thoughts and feeling straight to the reader. In the novel, Mango street typically houses residents with poor backgrounds, and is used as a temporary home for most. Although many people who live on Mango street move out in a short period of time, Esperanza stays in the house she hates longer than anyone else. She constantly watches her friends leave, and has to make new friends every time someone moves in. After experiencing this many times, I believe that Esperanza no longer continues to see herself as a resident on Mango street, but a part of Mango street. This is her distinct point of view compared to the others on mango street.
In all aspects of life, women are pressured to be someone they are not. They are put in situations that force them to chose a path of life. In “The House on Mango Street”, Esperanza is forced to think about leaving Mango Street in the future, because she is surrounded by women who are pushing her to become an adult.
The House on Mango Street portrays a young girl named Esperanza growing up and becoming a woman. During her childhood Sandra Cisneros stated that she felt out of place. She didn’t feel like she fits in as a Latina women in America, and went through some tough times; therefore she wrote about Esperanza to express how Cisneros grew up as a woman and matured through out her childhood. This novel expresses a coming of age story, and the goal of Esperanza to gain understanding of both herself and her community/culture. Throughout the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros Esperanza attempts to become an adult and tries to overcome the obstacles that allow her to be comfortable in her own skin.
Another challenge that arises with the process of puberty is the loss of innocence. In the vignette, “The Family of Little Feet”, readers can see how Esperanza and her friends learn the disturbing price of beauty as they experience their first encounter with provocative remarks. During this encounter, a bum says“ Your little lemon shoes are so beautiful. But come closer, I can’t see very well. Come closer. Please… Rachel, you are prettier than a yellow taxicab. You know that?” (Cisneros 41). After this incident, readers can observe how the girls’ childhood game of dress up turned into a promiscuous encounter with the reality of becoming women. When girls make the transition from childhood to adulthood, their bodies will start to change, and with that comes sexual innuendos they have not heard until now. Usually, a child’s innocence is lost over the course of a few years, but unfortunately in Esperanza’s situation, she was cruelly taken advantage of. The vignette, “ Red Clowns”, is about how Esperanza is sexually abused against her will at a carnival. When Esperanza recounts the horrid experience she says, “The one who grabbed my by the arm, he wouldn’t let me go. He said I love you, Spanish girl, I love you, and pressed his sour mouth to mine” (Cisneros 100). After this traumatic assault, it can be inferred that Esperanza’s innocence
The House on Mango Street’s main themes include self-discovery, the roles of women, and the blending of two cultures to form another. Esperanza’s journey on Mango Street is an inspiring one, teaching readers many truths about life. From self-defining moments to the difficulties of womanhood, all themes expressed in this novel change people's view of the world around
When I grow up, I want to be a black gum tree. Black gum trees are known for their internal strength. Instead of dwelling on outward beauty, they spend more time focusing on their inner growth and developing their core. Only after they have achieved this goal can they produce beautiful fruits that draw animals near to them. Any surfaces that the berries touch are stained as to say, “I was here and made a permanent difference.” After they have utilized their outward influences, they use their internal scars and hollow places to protect the animals surrounding around it. If human lives were to reflect the concepts of the black gum tree, governments, individuals, and communities would be radically transformed. While this is a beautiful image,
When first coming to this country as a Hispanic American you may face a lot of difficulties and find more problems than the average white American. Hispanic people go through different adversities and have trouble overcoming them. In The House on Mango Street the main character Esperanza is the one that narrates the story, she explains what it is like to live on Mango Street. She shows the readers that living on Mango Street is perceived as a terrible area, if one were looking from the outside in. But those that live there feel that they live in fair living conditions. The fact is most of the people who live on Mango Street don 't know what it 's like to live outside of mango street. In the story, they show a lifestyle that most Hispanic people deal with especially the ones that come to America and have to figure out how to make ends meet. In The House on Mango Street, the novel has many themes and problems, such as gender inequality, stereotypes, and language barriers. With short stories like "Aria" and "the myth of Latin Woman," a solution is always found. Sometimes there is a simple solution and other times, it is not so easy to find, or there 's just no solution to solving the characters problems and they are still trying to look for results.
In the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Magdalena’s identity is shaped throughout her childhood by poverty, her hopes/desires, and disappointment.
Two worlds. Two names. One person. In life there are always two sides to a situation, and two sides to a story. Sometimes there are two sides to someone’s life. There is always going to be tension between the two sides to show that every situation is going to have a more and less favorable side, and they are both there to show us who we are. The House on Mango Street is about a girl named Esperanza, and she is trying to find her place on mango street, and her place in life. Her life is impacted, in good ways and bad, by every person that she meets. We follow her, her family, her friends, and others in her journey of living on mango street, and experience her growing, developing, and experiencing the life made for her. In the book The House
The House on Mango Street,written by Sandra Cisneros, deals with a mexican girl named Esperanza, who grows up and dreams big in Chicago. Cisneros uses imagery, theme, and symbols to describe many things from Esperanza 's perspective. Imagery is used to describe items and people in a meaningful way. Cisneros uses various themes to show various ideas and beliefs. The symbols used describe objects and figures to portray ideas on a deeper level. Cisneros employs unique literary elements in The House on Mango Street that reflect meaningful ideas and beliefs through the narration of Esperanza.
When children are born the difference between whether the baby is a girl or boy depends on their chromosomes. The difference is that girls chromosomes are 46XX and boys are 46XY. This does not give boys any more authority in society than women, yet many women still feel inferior to men. In The House on Mango Street, Cisneros when writing, creates a separation between men and women in society. She focuses on how the men feel as though they have more authority over women. Cisneros takes each woman and makes each one of them them weak. By doing this, Cisneros makes it feel as though these women are owned by the men in their community. She explicitly talks about these women being abused and restricted by men to instill a lesson that
Gender role is represented as a social construction in The House on Mango Street. Men are depicted as a solid figure and are looked as a primary force while women are looked down upon and are treated as a sex object. Out of all the female character in the novel, Esperanza is distinctive. She does not see a future where she is subject to anybody. She has interminable dreams of her own. Her dreams of “having a house of her own” (pg. 4) starts at a very young age. As she moves into the new neighborhood in the Mango Street, she gets baffled since it is not the house her parents talked about and also not the real one’s she has seen on
Coming-of-age, the transition between childhood and adulthood, is a confusing and difficult time of discovering oneself. Prejudice from others based on race, gender, or economic status only makes growing up more challenging. Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street experience the ideological maturity toward womanhood while encountering problems most do not face until adulthood. Living in conservative Alabama where racial tension is high, Scout must learn to be compassionate when her father Atticus Finch defends African-American Tom Robinson against a white woman. Growing up on Mango Street, an impoverished neighborhood of Chicago, Esperanza faces being a poor, colored girl in a world meant for rich, white men. The girls must learn to overcome the classist, racist, and sexist societies surrounding them as they come-of-age. Scout and Esperanza learn to understand and overcome the hypocrisy in racial and gender standards; however, Scout learns to understand others’ perspectives of the world through her encounters with classism and racism whereas Esperanza learns to be autonomous despite challenges from her ethnicity and the impetus to rely on sexuality.
In the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza is finding her place in the world by growing physically and mentally, overcoming gender roles, and discovering her freedom.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros shows many instances of gender roles that majorly affect the characters throughout the book. Esperanza has one main goal: to leave Mango Street and live in her own home. However, stereotypes in this neighborhood limit her from achieving her goals. “The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours” (Cisneros 8). Boys and girls are viewed as completely different ideas with different characteristics.