House on Mango Street

In the book “The House on Mango Street” written by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza shows growth throughout the book. The growth she shows are aging and maturity. Throughout the book and the vignettes, Esperanza looks behind at her past and see what lessons she has learned over time. As she gets older, she gets more mature and expands her thinking.

Throughout The House on Mango Street Esperanza learns to resist the gender norms that are deeply imbedded in her community. The majority of the other female characters in the novel have internalized the male viewpoint and they believe that it is their husbands or fathers responsibility to care for them and make any crucial decisions for them. However, despite the influence of other female characters that are “immasculated”, according to Judith Fetterley, Esperanza’s experiences lead her to become a “resisting reader” in Fettereley’s terminology because she does not want to become like the women that she observes, stuck under a man’s authority. She desires to leave Mango Street and have a “home of her own” so that she will never be forced

Esperanza as a child takes the responsibility to fight for all the women who suffer from men discrimination, because in “Mango Street” mostly women are abandoned and the others dominated by their husband, Esperanza takes the responsibility to invite all the women to organize themselves in order to protect each other from men violence. Esperanza consider herself as the one who can liberate those women such as Minerva, a young woman who have already two children and abandoned by her husband, there is also Rafaela held indoors the house by her husband and she spends all her time in the windowsill to watch what is happen outside and many other women who undergo sufferings caused by their men, that is what characterized her commitment for the liberation of the women of her neighborhood. So as the girl, Esperanza carry the burden to deliver all women in “Mango Street” from all pains and she feels she is the right one who capable to let know her neighbors’

The Vargas house is a house which contains countless children with only a single mother to care for them. The Vargas children are known for being savage, vulgar, and impolite. They do not care about anyone or anything including themselves. It is almost an everyday occurrence that these children get into great danger or trouble. Esperanza does not want to be mixed in with these type of people and deal with all this commotion. She makes a mature decision of not associating herself with them and finding other friends. When Esperanza is new to Mango Street she tells her younger sister, Nenny, not to make friends with the Vargas’. As Esperanza grows and matures, she is realizing who she wants her friends to be. Her Ideal friends were perhaps not

I read a novel “Esperanza Rising” by Pam Munoz Ryan it is a story of a young girl. Esperanza was a rich girl at the time she was in Mexico and she became a labor worker on a farm in San Francisco, California. In this book I read all the stories there are a different kind of Mexican proverbs throughout the stories which reflect the way they are, and real meanings of the story. In this story they used three Mexican proverbs that reflects their story such as “He who falls today may rise tomorrow” “The rich person is richer when he becomes poor, than the poor person when he becomes rich’’ Wait a little while and the fruit will fall into your hand’’

Some women in Esperanza’s community fell into the stereotypes given to them by the people around them. Minerva was not strong or determined enough to overcome the stereotypes and as a result, her life is never going to be fulfilled to its greatest potential. Minerva is a young woman who also lives on Mango Street. She and Esperanza bond over each other's writing. Minerva got married at a young age and has two kids and a husband who constantly walks in and out of her life. In the vignette Minerva Writes Poems it states, “Next week she comes over black and blue and asks what can she do? Minerva. I don’t know which way she’ll go. There is nothing I can do” (150). Summing up, Mineva gave into what was expected of her and was affected negatively. She did not have the determination to break the

Another role model Esperanza has is her neighbor, Alicia, the most positive influence she meets in the story. Alicia is a strong independent young woman who spends most of her days cooking and cleaning for her family because her mother passed away. “Alicia who inherited her mama’s rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at university” (31). Esperanza admires how smart Alicia is, and, from her, Esperanza learns that studying hard will better her life. Esperanza understands it will not be easy: “Two trains and a bus, because [Alicia]

In life, we are often deeply influenced by the people who surround us. Consider the age-old adage “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”; this familiar saying reminds us that, in life, we gravitate toward people who appeal to us, and those people can have a great impact on who we are and the choices we make. In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Esperanza meets many women who play a role in her life. Some of the women impact her in negative ways, but others help her to see that she can make more of her life than what her Chicago neighborhood offers. Of all the women in Esperanza’s life, Esperanza is most influenced by her mother and Alicia because they teach her to rely on herself in order to escape Mango Street.

The Novel, The House on Mango Street, was based on the writer Sandra Cisneros. She was writing this when she was living in Chicago. She was like Esperanza. She want though poverty. She has been heartbroken and deeply joyous. She inventing for herself who and what she will become. This is the life of Esperanza Cordero and based on Sandra Cisneros to all women out there.

A poignant figure in Esperanza’s life is her own grandmother. In fact, Esperanza was given her birth name after her grandmother. A touching gesture that came from good faith. A name may have some value, but for Esperanza there was a high intrinsic quality to such a simple component. Despite, never encountering her own grandmother in person, Esperanza was grateful to have fond memories by carrying her legacy through her name. Life’s motto concerns dealing with adversity and carrying the legacy of one’s family eternally. Being confident and smart was the only way to live by. No man was needed to help raise and nurture herself. Her grandmother instilled in Esperanza a sense of fortitude and independence. It is sad that a regret of Esperanza is linked to her grandmother, further illustrating the physical and mental hardships one can endure in

Esperanza explains it as, “The boys and girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours” (Cisneros 8). Throughout the book, there is a constant conflict of being a female and keeping one’s freedom. Many of the men on Mango Street beat their wives and/or daughters and confine them to the home. Sally and Esperanza’s great-grandmothers are two examples of the mistreatment of women by men. Out of fear that Sally will run away, like his sisters did, Sally’s father abuses her as a means of control. In the chapter “What Sally Said”, Esperanza says,”But Sally doesn’t tell about the time he hit her with his hands just like a dog, she said, like if I was an animal” (Cisneros 92). Sally later ends up in an equally abusive and controlling marriage, which leaves her just like every other woman; by a window. Then there is Esperanza’s great-grandmother who was forced to marry and spend the rest of her life leaning out a window in sadness, dreaming of all the things she could have been in life. It is because of these things that Esperanza wants to escape; abusive relationshionships, confinement, helplessness, and fear. She refuses to comply with the expectations that society has set for her as a woman. For Esperanza, defying this gender role and remaining an independent woman is an act of dissent, and almost

In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, a young Latina girl named Esperanza struggles to find her identity as she grows up in a poor Latino community. Inevitably, there comes a point where she is conflicted with her sexuality as she progresses through her developmental stage. The author uses indirect characterization, symbolism, and repetition to convey the themes of innocence and sexuality. In the beginning of the chapter of “The Monkey Garden,” Esperanza expresses her frustration when she is not sure if she is becoming too old to play games.

In the book, The House on Mango Street, four characters named Esperanza, Sally, Rafaela, and Marin are introduced. Sally and Rafaela are the most similar. They both have men in their lives that fear their beauty. Also, their families find dancing troubling.

I believe that the “House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros portrays a very insightful message about social problems that exist in society. Sandra Cisneros demonstrates how social and family traditions as well as societal judgement may have a huge effect on an individual’s self-esteem. The main character in the story learns the harmful effects of sexual assault, physical abuse, racism and patriarchy and wants to rise up above these issues. By the end of the story the character exhibits incredible courage and foresight to not let her situation define her and to understand that she wants to get away from Mango Street and the social problems that surround it.

In Pagan’s critique, she clearly states the boldness and ingenuity of Cisneros text “The House on Mango Street”. She leads her essay expressing the fact that the story pushes the boundaries of social norms, and forces readers to face possibly uncomfortable and tough topics. These topics include things, as directly stated in the text, such as “race, class, power, and violence; the social construction of sex; female empowerment; and the feminization of poverty.(1) Pagan also mentions the countless opportunities that Cisneros’ novel gives teachers to start discussions with their students. She explains that there are many vignettes that give teachers the opportunities to bring up subjects that might be harder to talk about within the secure boundaries of a classroom.