House On Mango Street Comparison

Sally is gorgeous, She wears lots of make-up and short skirts. Boys gossip about her. Her father won't let her out of the house because of her beauty Esperanza wants to be her best friend. She wishes she didn't have to go home after school. Esperanza is two years younger then Minerva. She has two children and is married. Her husband left her only to return later and then leave again.When the kids are asleep she writes poetry. Esperanza and Minerva share poems they wrote. It bothers Esperanza that after her husband comes back and beats her she still takes him back.

The first time Esperanza makes an appearance in the book, she is younger and easily manipulated, especially by her friends. Esperanza meets a girl named Cathy, a snobby girl that lived on Mango Street. When Cathy tells Esperanza “Okay, I’ll be your friend. But only until next Tuesday. That’s when we move away.” Then as if she forgot I had just moved in, she says the neighborhood is getting bad” (13) This was a racist statement towards Esperanza and her family, something she doesn’t quite understand yet because Esperanza thinks Cathy forgot they moved in, yet she was actually being racist. This is the first time Esperanza is exposed to racism in the book, therefore exposing her to the outside world. Later in the book, Esperanza meets Sally, a beautiful girl with shiny black hair, that all she seemingly just wants is to love, and Esperanza wants to be just like her. “I like your black coat and the shoes you wear, where did you get them? I want to buy shoes just like yours.” (82) Sally and Esperanza become friends, but later in the story, in the chapter Red Clowns, Esperanza is put in a dangerous situation where Sally walks off

Another desire of young Janie is to find true, passionate love in a relationship. Returning to the metaphor of the pear tree, Janie says to her Grandma, “‘Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think’” (Hurston 24). Janie dreams of a peaceful, pleasant, and comfortable love in her marriage, similar to the quiet bliss of sitting in the shade of a blossoming pear tree. In her article, Kubitschek also points out Darwin Turner’s understanding that “‘All Janie wants is to love, be loved, and to share the life of her man. But . . . she must first find a man wise enough to let her be whatever kind of woman she wants to be’” (qtd. in Kubitschek 109). Unfortunately, this love and freedom was not acquired in Janie’s first marriage. Despite her hope that feelings of true love would develop with her first husband Logan Killicks, “she knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston 25). Discontent with lack of passion in her first marriage, Janie decides to abandon her dream of finding love with Logan and does not hesitate to run away with Jody Starks when the situation presents itself. Deborah Clarke comments on this change in heart, writing, “Janie thus gives up a

In the book The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros presents a series of vignettes that involve a young girl, named Esperanza, growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero is searching for a release from the low expectations and restrictions that Latino society often imposes on its young women. Cisneros draws on her own background to supply the reader with accurate views of Latino society today. In particular, Cisneros provides the chapters “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and Cruel” to portray Esperanza’s stages of growth from a questioning and curious girl to an independent woman. Altogether, “Boys and Girls” is not like “Beautiful and Cruel” because Cisneros reveals two different maturity levels in Esperanza;

Zora Neale Hurston had an intriguing life, from surviving a hurricane in the Bahamas to having an affair with a man twenty years her junior. She used these experiences to write a bildungsroman novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, about the colorful life of Janie Mae Crawford. Though the book is guised as a quest for love, the dialogues between the characters demonstrate that it is actually about Janie’s journey to learn how to not adhere to societal expectation.

Those living in today’s world are constantly bombarded with the stereotypes and distorted images of a consumerist society. As a result, they often struggle with a loss of identity because mass media try to dictate what they should want to be and do. Zora Neale Hurston tackles this age-old search for self-discovery in her fictional frame story Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie Crawford tells her best friend, Pheoby, about her quest for her own voice, despite setbacks in the form of relatives, two husbands, and entire towns that attempt to silence her. From a young age, Janie yearns for enlightenment; however, the roles Nanny, Logan Killicks, and Joe Starks force upon her prevent her from reaching selfhood until she meets and falls in love

In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, a young woman travels through difficult life experiences in order to find herself. Hurston portrays the protagonist as an adventurous soul trapped in the binds of suppressing marriages. Janie experiences three different types of marriage learning from each one what she values most. From these marriages she learned she values love and respect, finally achieving them in her last marriage. Each new marriage brought something new to the table for Janie and no matter the situation or the outcome of the relationship Janie grew into her own independent individual because of it.

     The plan for Janie’s future begins with her lack of having real parents. Hurston builds up a foundation for Janie that is bound to fall like a Roman Empire. Janie’s grandmother, whom she refers to as “Nanny” takes the position as Janie’s guardian. The problem begins here for Janie because her Nanny not only spoils her, but also makes life choices for her. Nanny is old, and she only wants the best for her grandchild, for she knows that the world is a cruel place. Nanny makes the mistake of not allowing Janie to learn anything on her own. When Janie was sixteen years old, Nanny wanted to see her get married. Although Janie argued at first, Nanny insisted that Janie get married. “’Yeah, Janie, youse got yo’ womanhood on yuh… Ah wants to see you married right away.’” (Page 12). Janie was not given a choice in this decision. Her Nanny even had a suitor picked out for her. Janie told herself that she would try to make the best of the situation and attempt to find love in her marriage to Logan Killicks. But, as time went by, Janie realized that she still did not have any feelings of what she had considered to be love in her husband.

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 both Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the focus is on women who want better lives but face difficult struggles before gaining them. The difficulties involving men which Janie and Delia incur result from or are exacerbated by the intersection of their class, race, and gender, which restrict each woman for a large part of her life from gaining her independence.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston a young girl named Janie begins her life unknown to herself. She searches for the horizon as it illustrates the distance one must travel in order to distinguish between illusion and reality, dream and truth, role and self? (Hemenway 75). She is unaware of life?s two most precious gifts: love and the truth. Janie is raised by her suppressive grandmother who diminishes her view of life. Janie?s quest for true identity emerges from her paths in life and ultimatly ends when her mind is freed from mistaken reality.

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

Janie Crawford from the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by the author Zora Neale Hurston, chases true love throughout her life. In her search for true love she marries thrice, once to Logan Killicks whom she was pressured to marry by her grandmother, once to Joe Starks who she married in part to escape her first marriage and partly because he was interesting and ambitious, and finally to Tea Cake when she had found actual true love. In these marriages Janie grew and developed as a woman and is is through them that Janie would eventually find out who she is. Janie’s first marriage was to Logan Killicks, an older man that her grandmother pressured her to marry so she would have safety after her death, “ ‘Tain’t Logan Killicks I wants you to have, baby, it’s protection” (Hurston 14). Janie hoped that through this marriage she might learn to love Logan, however as time goes on and she notices more and more flaws, Janie realizes she can’t learn to love Logan, “ ‘Cause you told me Ah mus gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t” (Hurston 22).

Symbolism is key in this novel as Cisneros expresses a lot of information through symbols The concept of the high heels that the girls; Esperanza, Lucy, Rachel, and Nenny had received showed one of their first tastes into their sexual maturity. Beforehand, Esperanza believed that boys in girls live in separate social spheres as shown in the vignette “Boys & Girls” where she discusses how her brothers are best friends and that she wants another friend, specifically a girl, to talk about her feelings and share her secrets with. This is also where Esperanza talks about another key symbol in this story.

With this in mind the internal conflict is important, because it shows Esperanza’s sensitivity about everything what concerns herself and her being insecure. One of the vignette that tells about is called “ Chanclas.” It recounts about her being non confident, because of her old shoes that she gets every year. For example, the quote says, “ Then Uncle Nacho is pulling and pulling my arm and it does not matter how the new dress Mama bought me is because my feet are ugly.” (Cisneros 46). This quote shows that she cares so much about one detail and even the prettiest dress cannot divert her attention. She does not pay attention to the dress, because she just thinks about her shoes and she assumes everyone will look at her feet. Another quote which supports her insecure, is “ Meanwhile that boy who is my cousin by first communion or something asks me to dance and I can’t. Just stuff my feet under the metal folding chair stamped Precious Blood and pick on a wad of brown gum that’s stuck beneath the seat. I shake my head no. My feet growing bigger and bigger.” (Cisneros 47) According to this quote Esperanza does not want people to notice her imperfection so she stays out of society contact. It is not because she does not want to she explains it as a cannot thing. She does not want to embarrass herself. The quote which stays for her having low self esteem is “Until my uncle who is a liar says, You are the prettiest girl here, will you dance, but I believe him, and yes, we are dancing. And Uncle spins me, and my skinny arms bend the way he taught me, and my mom watches, and my little cousins watch, and the boy who is my cousin by first communion watches, and everyone says, wow, who are those two who dance like in the movies, until I forget that I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white.” (Cisneros 47) There is a clear statement that supports, that she thinks about