House On Mango Street Identity

CD: At the beginning of the novel, Esperanza describes her relations to the boys in her neighborhood as “a red balloon that is tied to an

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.

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.

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.

She discovers that her aunt has found her a job matching pictures with negatives at the local photofinishing store. Esperanza has to lie about her age so she can get the job with her Aunt Lala. Esperanza starts to feel more comfortable as she has someone to eat lunch with. He says to Esperanza that “I please him with a birthday kiss” (55). She says she would but he grabs her faces, kisses her hard and does not let go. This is Esperanza’s first real sexual experience that she has. Esperanza has her first crush with a boy named Sire. He has a girlfriend named Lois who doesn’t really know much. Her parents tell that Sire is a punk but that does not keep Esperanza from wishing she could “sit up outside late at night on the steps with sire/ or from wondering what it feels like to be held by a boy, something she so far has only felt in her dreams” (72-71). This is Esperanza’s first experience of jealousy to finding the missing pieces of a puzzle to her identity. Esperanza sometimes worries that she is unattractive and that her looks will “leave her stuck at home” (88). Esperanza’s mother by saying she will be more beautiful as she gets older. Esperanza is faced by getting judged on your self-image. She wants to be like the “femme fatales” in movies, who drive men crazy and refuse them instead of waiting around for a husband to take her away. Esperanza’s mother complains that how she could have done something with her life and about how

Another social conflict hindering Esperanza’s academic success is her wish for a best friend. She has difficulty fostering friendships because most of the children in her neighborhood are not positive influences on her. This is proven when Esperanza says she cannot play with a specific troubled family, the Vargases, or else she will “...turn out just like them” (8). Esperanza also says she cannot be friends with her sister Nenny, as she “...is too young to be my friend. She’s just my sister which is not my fault” (8). Esperanza makes her wish for a friend even more manifested by directly stating “Someday I hope will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand all of my jokes without me having to explain them” (9). Aa brief point in the story, Esperanza does in fact gain an older friend named Sally. Unfortunately, Sally betrays Esperanza by abandoning her at a city carnival. As a result of being alone and vulnerable, Esperanza is sexually assaulted by an older man. Esperanza later ponders nerve wracking questions such as why Sally left her, why she lied to her, and why she let her be

During “My First Job”, Esperanza provides readers with her first encounter of flirting by Tito; a boy who uses violence as a method to flirt with girls. During the same time, Esperanza experiences a violent assault by an older gentlemen from an innocent kiss for his birthday. However, this encounter between Esperanza and the older gentlemen foreshadows her rape later on in the novella. Sexuality is no longer seen as happy and delightful, her approach is violent and oppressive. With her realization of the male dominance that comes into play in Chicago, readers become aware of Esperanza’s maturity level.

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.

Esperanza Cordero is a young twelve year old girl, growing up in a place, in a house, where she feels as though she does not want to be, or even belong. She often remembered her great-grandmother, from whom she had gotten her name from, as a way of relating her hopelessness to someone. Esperanza usually felt hopeless, which she found ironic considering that the name itself means hope. She reminisces about her great-grandmother from the stories she had been told, saying that she was a “horse woman,” who was free-spirited until she had gotten married and tied down. Esperanza only had this

Very early in the book, the separation between males and females in Esperanza’s society is highlighted. Esperanza herself says, “The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours” (Cisneros 8). This separation leads to many characteristic differences between the males and females of the book.

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

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, was written in 1984. The novel features the story of a Latina girl, named Esperanza, growing up in inner city Chicago. The story is told through a multitude of vignettes that showcase the struggles Mexican immigrants face in America. Although set in 1984, The House on Mango Street continues to be relevant with the enduring debate over Mexican immigrants in America today.

The ending of The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is very effective for two main reasons. The last chapter of the novel, titled “Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes,” summarizes everything Esperanza has learned throughout her time living on Mango Street, and explains her plans for the future. The reader learns that she no longer wants to leave Mango Street forever; rather, she says she will have “gone away to come back.” This leads to the other reason the ending is very effective. The ending demonstrates just how much Esperanza has changed throughout her childhood, showing that she has gone from a young girl whose only wish is to escape Mango Street and the poverty that comes with it to a young woman who plans on going back to where she

“In the teenage years, young people begin their quests for identity” (Bellows 2). According to Dr. Amy Bellows in her article “Your Teen’s Search for Identity”; our teenage years is the time period when we scour for an identity, although we find a struggle to find our true identity. Status symbols, forbidden behaviors, rebellion, idols, and cliquish exclusion are the most common ways in which us as teenagers struggle with our identity (Bellows 2-7). In other words, peer pressure and self-esteem are some of the factors that can mislead us from the path towards our “ideal” identity. Furthermore, searching for an identity influences one’s future.

Every morning I wake up thanking God for another day of life. Thankful that I have the opportunity to open my curtain windows to view Arizona’s bright sunlight. Outside of my curtain window, something is much brighter; a fiery stunning red car Olympic lookalike four rings on the bumper, almost as if I’m heading on a roller coaster, waiting to take me on a thrill ride.